The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Mercy Health evaluates local health needs, then creates plan to improve
Mercy Health - Lorain has finalized its Community Health Improvement Plan setting the stage in developing programming to address local needs for the next three years.
Catherine Woskobnick, director of community health at Mercy Health - Lorain, said the plan is released every few years and is developed in collaboration with the Lorain County Health Department.
In collecting and analyzing 160 pages of data, the plan establishes seven different priority categories.
Woskobnick said feedback was sought from community members and they were asked what their priorities were.
And chronic disease was at the top of list, she said.
“Chronic disease is important for both men and women,” Woskobnick said. “And so that’s around women and men knowing their numbers.
“How am I doing with my blood pressure? How am I doing with diabetes? Diabetes is still a huge a huge piece for men and for women. So how can we help folks with that? How can we help them be more active by maybe an exercise program?”
In digging into the numbers, Woskobnick said the Community Health Improvement Plan process engaged the community in late 2018 with the data becoming available in May 2019.
“The data tells us who’s in need,” she said. “And so it allows us to go ahead and say, who do we need to focus on the most?
“So for example, when I go ahead to the survey data, it allows me to see that folks that are Hispanic and Latino, and African American do struggle when it comes to those chronic disease indicators.”
The plan aims to develop a men’s chronic disease program focusing on chronic disease barriers including blood pressure, diabetes, exercise and diet in addition to exercise and food prescription programs.
The Community Health Improvement Plan which mirrors the county plan also will address the social determinants of health with increased cultural competency training and working to improve health equity.
“And so, what makes that beautiful is that all health care systems are coming together to collectively work on these items,” Woskobnick said.
Mercy Health is using the process and its conclusions to partner with agencies in the community like
El Centro De Servicios Soc where it plans to host cooking demonstrations and combine it with education around cholesterol and diabetes screenings, she said.
The collaborators
Mercy Health is working with the Lorain County Urban League, Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio and Lorain County Metro Parks in designing programming to address local needs.
For improving health outcomes, Woskobnick said it is important to understand the very different needs of men and women in addressing cancer and mental health and developing awareness and programming around it.
“Cancer is very hard, but for men and women, there are some different needs,” she said. “So for women, breast cancer is the toughest and for men, it’s really around prostate awareness.
“And then for both men and women colonoscopies and making sure that they that they take care of the colonoscopy piece.”