Community Health Needs Assessment of Reno Area, Nevada: A Project Supported through the New Requirement Affordable Care Act

Background:

The Affordable Care Act (ACA), enacted in 2010, added new requirements that hospital organizations must satisfy in order to be described in section 501©(3) as non-profit status. One of the requirements is to conduct a community health needs assessment (CHNA) and adopt an implementation strategy at least once every three years.

Objectives: In accordance with the new ACA CHNA requirement, St. Mary Regional Medical Center sponsored a project to identify and prioritize community health needs and to establish the long term capacity for community based public health analysis.

Methods:

1) A survey conducted using zip-code based disproportionate random sample from residents of Washoe County (Reno area), Nevada; 2) A survey conducted among patients at special clinics where provide cares to medically under-served populations; 3) Developed an interactive zip-code level community health map with major public health indicators.

Results:

970 and 588 responded the survey from community sample and special sample respectively. Affordable health insurance, affordable medical care and healthy economy are ranked to three factors by respondents. 40.6% reported they could not see a doctor because of costs from special group comparing to 13.7% from their counterpart in community sample. Results from the surveys along with major public health indicators are accessible to health professionals and general public through establishing an interactive zip-code level community health map website.

Conclusions:

Affordable medical care ranked as the top need for community and Affordable Care Act could be a leverage and opportunity to enhance the public health analytical capacity and health promotions.