142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

Annual Meeting Recordings are now available for purchase

299665
Empowering Our Communities to Be The Healthiest in the Nation: Aligning a Healthcare System to Improve Population Health

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Chris Kirk, Ph.D. , Atlantic Center for Population Health Sciences, Atlantic Health System, Morristown, NJ
William Neigher, Ph.D. , Atlantic Center for Population Health Sciences, Atlantic Health System, Morristown, NJ
Sharon Johnson-Hakim, Ph.D. , Atlantic Center for Population Health Sciences, Atlantic Health System, Morristown, NJ
Joyce Passen, BSN, MBA , Community Health, Overlook Medical Center, Atlantic Health System, Summit, NM
Christine Orr, MS, RD, CDE, BC-ADM , Community Health, Newton Medical Center, Atlantic Health System, Morristown, NJ
Joan Beloff , Chilton Medical Center, Atlantic Health System, Pompton PLains, NJ
Victoria Hughes, RN, MA , Community Health, Morristown Medical Center, Atlantic Health System, Morristown, NJ
Maryann Walsh, MPH, MCHES , Community Health, Morristown Medical Center, Atlantic Health System, Morristown, NJ
Gwendolyn Rippey, Ph.D. , Atlantic Health System, Morristown, NJ
Nisha Mehta, MPH , Community Outreach/Health, Chilton Medical Center, pompton plains, NJ
Maureen Cianci, RN, BSN , Atlantic Health System, Newton, NJ
In 2013, Atlantic Health System, a large, non-profit health care system in Northern New Jersey, changed its vision statement to “Empowering Our Communities to be the Healthiest in the Nation.”  This change represented a departure from the traditional focus on providing top quality clinical care, and a significant step towards the healthcare system emphasizing prevention and addressing the social determinants of health.

While this process is on-going and influenced by many external forces (e.g. Affordable Care Act implementation), the process of transformation is taking place in three distinct areas. First, a great deal of effort has been put into organizational alignment. This process has included energizing Trustees, modifying the employee incentive structures, and creating new programs to maximize line-of-sight understanding between employees across the organization and the new vision.

Second, the Atlantic Center for Population Health Sciences was formed to re-organize and re-direct existing departments of community health, aligning community outreach efforts with evidence-based best practices and community health needs.

Third, a process for obtaining, using and communicating data, from both clinical settings and public health, in new ways both to improve the quality of care, to monitor population health outcomes and to address service gaps or disparities. 

Although much remains to be done, Atlantic Health System has laid the foundation for achieving its community-focused vision; other hospitals and healthcare systems can learn from our process, challenges, and lessons learned.

Learning Areas:

Administration, management, leadership
Conduct evaluation related to programs, research, and other areas of practice
Program planning
Public health or related organizational policy, standards, or other guidelines
Systems thinking models (conceptual and theoretical models), applications related to public health

Learning Objectives:
List the processes used to align organizational support within the healthcare system at the trustee, senior management, and employee levels Identify techniques for prioritization of community health programming Discuss the key transitions for healthcare systems moving toward increased population health initiatives.

Keyword(s): Community Health Assessment, Health Care Reform

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am qualified to be the author of this Abstract as it represents my experience in leading populatoin health initiatives for a large, U.S. healthcare system.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.