Utilizing Community Health Needs Assessments (CHNAs) in Nonprofit Hospitals to Guide Population-Centered Outcomes Research for Pediatric Patients: New Recommendations for CHNA Reporting

Abstract

Currently, Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) reports lack a standard structure, making it difficult to derive meaningful information. However, they have the potential to be a useful tool for analyzing pediatric outcomes, guiding resource allocation, and linking to Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute priorities. The objective was to evaluate the utility of CHNA for informing future pediatric, patient-centered outcomes research. The authors analyzed CHNA documents, published before July 1, 2016 by 61 nonprofit hospitals, focusing on 4 metropolitan areas in Florida: Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Jacksonville. Out of 18 health priorities identified, access to care and obesity were universally recognized as the most urgent pediatric health needs across all hospital types and metropolitan regions. This analysis also yielded insights into key regional differences. The authors advocate that a major change in the CHNA format be implemented using a common set of domains to produce meaningful, interpretable, and comparable results that inform and guide patient-centered health outcomes research.

Keywords: CHNA; PCORI; pediatric health needs.

FIG. 1.

Counties served by freestanding children's hospitals in Florida. Color images are available online.

FIG. 2.

Priority scores for each of the pediatric health needs by the 4 metropolitan regions compared to the weighted mean from 61 hospitals in Florida. A higher score indicates that more hospitals in the metropolitan area placed a priority on that specific health need. The weighted score was calculated by adjusting the total number of hospitals within each of the 4 metropolitan regions (ie, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, Miami). Color images are available online.

FIG. 3.

Pediatric health needs by 3 types of hospitals in Florida. The figure shows the proportion of hospitals that included specific health priorities in their Community Health Needs Assessment reports. The 3 types of hospitals included: (1) hospitals with distinct pediatric priorities (x-axis); (2) hospitals with no distinct priorities (y-axis); (3) freestanding children's hospitals (color of the bubble). CHNA, Community Health Needs Assessment; HVS, hearing/vision/speech; MCH, maternal and child health. Color images are available online.