Are you a Master Builder? Learn Frameworks to Build Community Benefit Programming and Create Partnerships

Tasked with addressing new health topics identified in a community health needs assessment, hospitals and health departments can find themselves wondering where to start.  They may ask, what factors are most important in implementing new programs? How is this topic already addressed in the community? Should we create our own program or partner with another agency?

At St. Louis Children’s Hospital two health topics were identified as needs in the community which did not have existing community outreach programs. A team of front line staff met with management and senior leadership in a planning retreat to generate suggestions for programming and vote on program ideas. Each idea was measured against eleven factors relating to the impact and feasibility of the proposed programs. These factors were put into Kepner-Tregoe (KT) matrix and weighted based on importance.

This process offered an opportunity to partner with community agencies in determining the specific needs of the region as well as an opportunity to build on existing programs. Leadership met with community agencies to ensure that we would not be duplicating efforts and to understand how suggested programming might be adding value to existing infrastructure. Institutional partners were also contacted to identify physician champions for each suggested program and the availability for funding and the level of donor interest. These results were included in the KT decision making matrix. The hospital used this process to select an already existing program to partner with that will address both health topics that saves money and consolidates resources.