Assessment Of The Administrative Mechanism

On behalf of the West Central Florida Ryan White Care Council, the Health Council will conduct an Assessment of the Administrative Mechanism of the Ryan White Lead Agency.  In keeping with HRSA requirements, the evaluation will review how efficiently providers are selected and paid and how well their contracts are monitored.  It will assess the planning process used prior to procurement and the disbursement of funds. The Health Council will work with a Care Council committee to determine the methodology and timeline for the assessment.

For more information contact Kathey LaRoche at 727-217-7070 ext. 17 or by email at klaroche@healthcouncils.org

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Assessment Of Pinellas Front Porch Community

In partnership with ASAP the Health Council will conduct a community assessment gathering data from multiple sources on demographic and health status indicators including chronic diseases, leading causes of death, and communicable diseases. The Council will conduct nine focus groups to gather information on health care issues and barriers facing residents and their service providers. The report will be used to identify health care needs and develop intervention priorities. The project targets the residents of the Front Porch community in south Pinellas County and will be completed by June 2012.

For more information contact Kathey LaRoche at 727-217-7070 ext. 17 or by email at klaroche@healthcouncils.org

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Certificate Of Need (CON)
The Certificate of Need (CON) program is a state regulatory review process for the initiation or expansion of health care facilities and/or services. The goal of the program is to promote equal access to quality health care services at a reasonable cost. A certificate of need must be obtained from the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) for example to increase the number of licensed beds at a health care facility, establish or construct a new health care facility, or the establish tertiary services including organ transplant, burn units, and neonatal intensive care. Applications from competing facilities are reviewed by the Agency in two batching cycles throughout the year. This review process is intended to minimize health care costs by limiting the expenditure of capital funds to only those programs and services necessary to ensure quality patient care.

The Health Councils is responsible for collecting utilization data, such as patient days, transplant plant volume and open heart surgeries, from local hospitals and nursing homes. We also monitor construction progress on approved CON's and facilitate public hearings on CON applications under review.

Hospital and nursing home utilization data provided to the Agency for Health Care Administration are available to the public in Quarterly Reports distributed by The Health Councils. The following reports can be purchased by contacting Barbara Martinez at 727- 217-7070 ext. 13 or by email at bmartinez@healthcouncils.org:

Quarterly Hospital Utilization Report - $25
Quarterly Nursing Home Utilization Report - $20
Annual Hospital Utilization Report - $50
Annual Nursing Home Utilization Report - $40
Hospital Utilization Data Subscription - $125
Nursing Home Utilization Data Subscription - $100

Note: There is a moratorium on certificates of need for the addition of community nursing home beds through July 1, 2011.

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HIV Service Planning
Working with the eight county West Central Florida Ryan White Care Council, staff develop a comprehensive plan for services, design and implement a needs assessment including surveying over 900 clients and 50 experts, conduct community leader and client focus groups, perform resource and funding stream analyses, update epidemiological reports, and prioritize service needs based on a gap analysis. Staff provides ongoing technical assistance and partnership facilitation to the Ryan White Care Council and its committees to enhance the effectiveness of health planning activities of the planning body. For more information about the West Central Florida Ryan White Care Council, please visit their website at www.thecarecouncil.org

For more information contact Collette Tomberlin at 727-217-7070 ext. 14 or by email at rwmanager@healthcouncils.org
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HIV Quality Management (QM)

Working with the Ryan White Lead Agency for the eight county region, the Health Council will design and implement a Quality Management (QM) program.  QM will determine progress made toward relevant benchmarks using adopted outcome measures and a continuous accountability process.  QM will also focus on linkages, efficiencies, and provider/client expectations in addressing outcome improvement.  A QM Technical Advisory Work Group appointed by the Lead Agency will provide guidance.  Feedback will be provided to the West Central Florida Ryan White Care Council on a regular basis.

For more information contact Kathey LaRoche at 727-217-7070 ext. 17 or by email at klaroche@healthcouncils.org

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Mobilizing for Action Through
Planning and Partnerships (MAPP)
MAPP is a strategic planning model developed by National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to help communities address health priorities. The Florida Department of Health has suggested that the MAPP process be used in all 67 Florida counties. The Health Councils helps communities with program coordination, data collection and analysis, and organization in our seven county planning area as they work through the MAPP planning process and address community health concerns.

For more information contact Elizabeth Rugg at 727-217-7070 ext. 23 or by email at erugg@healthcouncils.org
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PEACH
Community participation is a crucial part of community health planning, but it is often hard to get or impossible to quantify. By using an interactive methodology called the Popular Empirical Assessment of Community Health (PEACH), qualitative data can be captured in a quantifiable way, allowing for direct integration of community input into health assessments and the development of health policy.

PEACH was developed by The Health Councils to capture the qualitative data provided by the community. PEACH is an interactive process that allows qualitative data to be captured in a quantifiable way. PEACH uses a flexible ranking methodology to ask for information from the community on topics ranging from priority health issues; to areas of unmet need; to how scarce resources should be allocated; to the role many agents should play in expanding access to care.

PEACH can be used in any setting in which a group must prioritize the issues or narrow the scope of focus for a project. The prioritization process serves as the foundation of the strategy development exercise, allowing the participants to translate their decisions into action steps.

For more information contact Teresa Kelly at 727-217-7070 ext. 16 or by email at tkelly@healthcouncils.org

Click here to view an award winning conference poster on PEACH

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PUBLIC HEALTH SYSTEM PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT OF NPHPSP

The National Public Health Performance Standards Program (NPHPSP) is a collaborative effort to enhance the Nation’s public health systems. The ten essential services provide a working definition of public health and a guiding framework for the responsibilities of local public health systems.  They are:

• Monitor health status to identify and solve community health problems.
• Diagnose and investigate health problems and health hazards in the community.
• Inform, educate, and empower people about health issues.
• Mobilize community partnerships and action to identify and solve health problems.
• Develop policies and plans that support individual and community health efforts.
• Enforce laws and regulations that protect health and ensure safety.
• Link people to needed personal health services and assure the provision of health care when otherwise unavailable.
• Assure competent public and personal health care workforce.
• Evaluate effectiveness, accessibility, and quality of personal and population-based health services.
• Research for new insights and innovative solutions to health problems.

Using instruments developed by NACCHO and CDC a community assesses its performance relative to these ten essential services.  Health Council staff is trained to coordinate the local assessment.

For more information contact Teresa Kelly at 727-217-7070 ext. 16 or by email at tkelly@healthcouncils.org