Oaklawn: Community Health Needs Assessment, Calhoun County

Oaklawn Hospital conducted this Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) to further its commitment to the community and to fulfill the requirements of the Affordable Care Act. For the purposes of this CHNA, the definition of community is all residents of Calhoun County, Michigan. This CHNA began in October 2015 and was completed and approved by Oaklawn’s Board of Directors in March 2016.

Data on health needs were derived using three methods:

• Data gathered and analyzed from secondary sources such as US Census, Michigan Department of Community Health, and the Center for Disease Control (CDC)
• A community wide survey
• Geographic and demographic based focus groups (Albion community, Marshall community, Seniors, and individuals currently struggling with homelessness and substance abuse recovery)
• Key informant interviews with representatives knowledgeable in the community, service providers, health care providers, medically underserved populations, minority populations, rural populations, and businesses.

This data was analyzed to identify the top health needs of residents of Calhoun County

• Access to healthcare
• Maternal & infant health
• Chronic disease management
• Obesity & weight reduction
• Healthy lifestyle education & support
• Older adult & senior health
• Health disparities
• Sexual health & STI’s
• Mental health

Oaklawn provides services and support to all of these community health needs.  For its FY 2017 focus these top health needs were prioritized using criteria including availability of evidence-based interventions and measures of impact, magnitude of the need, and fit within Oaklawn’s strategy and capabilities.

As a result of this analysis, Oaklawn identified improving access to care, chronic disease management and healthy lifestyle education and support for special attention in FY 2017 for community health improvement. This decision reflects a coming together of the health needs expressed by residents of Calhoun County through survey data, focus groups, and key informant interviews as well as trends related to chronic disease management, obesity, and the impact of healthy lifestyles on health outcomes.