A Tool to Help Health Systems More Effectively Work with Communities
Tuesday, February 13th, 12:30pm-2pm PT / 3:30-5pm ET, Register
At our symposium in May 2017, we introduced the first version of a tool to help the health sector better respond to the needs of communities by cultivating a more inclusive and participatory approach. This tool is designed to help people put into practice the 12 Principles Bridging Health & Community (BH&C) has described for fostering the agency of communities to improve health.
Regular readers may recall reading about it in this earlier post.
Since then we’ve had a chance to use the tool in a few conference workshops, share it with organizations considering using it in their ‘population health’ or ‘community health’ practice, and hear from some of you who have given it a try in your own practice.
Jefferson Healthcare, WA
Our tool to help health care systems take stock of how they’re working with communities
One such example came from colleagues at Jefferson Healthcare in Jefferson County, Washington. Jefferson Healthcare is a public hospital district with a 25-bed, critical access hospital and a fully integrated health care system providing services to over 29,000 residents. We were particularly excited to hear about how they used our tool since Jefferson Healthcare is based in Port Townsend, which also happens to be my newly-adopted hometown!
On Tuesday, February 13th I am heading across town to join Dunia Faulx of Jefferson Healthcare for a webinar about the tool and the experience of using it. Washington State Hospital Association is partnering with us to host the webinar.
Applying the Principles
In the webinar, I’ll review the well-established rationale for why agency – the ability to make purposeful choices – is an important part of health. I’ll reflect on how most health interventions are designed to provide services for individuals and communities, potentially diminishing agency – and hence health. Then, drawing on our practice-based research, I’ll share the 12 guiding principles that we have surfaced for how health systems can instead improve health by working with communities.
After my overview, which will include a look at our tool, Dunia will talk about her experience of using it with her team at Jefferson Healthcare. They used it to take stock of their approach to population health. We’ll then open it up for a dialog about how this tool can be used to change how health systems are – and could be – approaching community health priorities more effectively.
A little about Dunia Faulx, MPH: Dunia has been with Jefferson Healthcare since 2016 working on population health initiatives across the organization. She uses data to develop and evaluate programs related to the social determinants of health. Prior to this role, Dunia was the community health director at Jefferson County Public Health. Before moving into a career in rural health, Dunia worked for several years as a program officer at PATH, a global health non-profit based in Seattle, WA.
