Affordable Care Act's Community Health Needs Assessment: How Implementation Plans Impact Community Health

On March 23, 2010, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) added requirements for 501(c)(3) hospital organizations stating that a Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) must be conducted at least once every three years. Reported under the IRS Form 990, hospitals must demonstrate knowledge of existing priority health needs in the community they serve. Our team completed 15 CHNAs and Implementation Plans for hospitals in a variety of settings including: urban, rural and academic medical centers. The CHNA is designed to take into consideration the quantitative health indicators, as well as input from public health experts and persons who represent broad interests of the community served. By evaluating the available primary and secondary data and incorporating knowledge of the individual hospital’s strengths and capacities health priorities were identified. Implementation Plans with strategies to address the health priorities identified by the CHNA were created by reviewing evidence-based programs and best practices to give the hospitals strategies to impact the health of their community. The earliest CHNAs were completed over a year ago and the have been used to modify existing hospital programs and develop new ones. Additionally, discussion of lessons learned as well as future recommendations gathered from evaluation of the CHNA process could contribute to enriching implementation strategy development and adoption procedures.