Community Health Needs Assessments

Community Health Needs Assessments (CHNAs) ensure that local hospitals properly focus on the needs of the people for whom they care. A CHNA is forward-looking, since it informs a plan, yet very much rooted in the urgent needs of today.

 

At Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine, our founding curriculum was not designed until we had determined through our own investigation how it could be used to advance the health and well-being of our neighbors. The December 2009 presentation was made at a joint retreat of the CHNA Community Health Advisory Board and the leadership, staff and faculty of the medical school to jointly consider how the findings would influence our curriculum, research priorities and service activities and to make specific recommendations to those responsible for each domain. Subsequent CHNAs, in which we acted in partnership with other community stakeholders, are used to measure the success of our initial plan and to guide our progress.