Overall Goal and Approach to Implementation Plan

Macon Community Hospital is the only hospital in Macon County. The hospital offers high quality in and outpatient services to the community. Our mission is: To continually improve our services to meet our community healthcare needs. The hospital shall be operated as a not-for-profit business and yet provide a reasonable return to allow adequate funds to replace and add new equipment and facilities. Provide services in a personal and caring manner. Deliver cost-efficient services. Develop and promote health awareness, including pain management. Promote a work environment conducive to quality work practices. Develop appropriate network and affiliation arrangements with other healthcare organizations to meet the community’s healthcare needs and the changing healthcare environment. Monitor clinical outcomes in an effective manner to assure quality care is provided to the patients we serve. Macon Community Hospital’s approach to providing community benefit is to target the intersection of documented unmet community health needs and our organizations key strengths and mission commitment.

Community Partners

Macon Community Hospital believes that it is extremely important to work with other like-minded agencies, organizations, and institutions to truly make a difference. By linking together and effectively using limited resources, MCH can address more of the identified specific unmet community health needs as well as assist in improving the broader health needs of the community. MCH does not believe that it can effectively address all of the community health needs without committed partners. Below are some of the partners that MCG will collaborate with in accomplishing the desired outcomes for the health needs we have selected for this implementation plan.

  • Macon County Health Department
  • Macon County Coordinated School Health
  • Macon County Health Council
  • Macon County Chamber of Commerce
  • Macon County UT Extensions Services
  • Middle TN Rural Health Network
  • American Cancer Society

Results of Needs Assessment

The 2012 Community Health Needs Assessment identifies a number of unmet or partially met health needs through our service area. Analysis of the community needs assessment data provided a means to evaluate and prioritize areas of greatest need. Health needs were naked based on four factors.

  • The ability of Macon Community Hospital to evaluate and measure outcomes.
  • How many people are affected by the issue or size of the problem?
  • What are the consequences of not addressing the problem?

The graphical representation on the following page aided in identifying our health priorities for MCH. By addressing the needs in the graph, the community health will likely improve as these needs have the greatest impact on overall health and the hospital is more likely to have a positive impact on these needs.

Focus Areas

As a result of the analysis, cancer, heart disease and diabetes were identified as the priority areas on which we will focus.

Health needs not addressed: There were other areas that are clearly important in improving the health of the community. However, they are deemed to have less immediate impact and will be addressed in a future plan, or if the community arises, integrated into this plan as a sub-objective activity only.

The most notable health needs not addressed are the time are Drug and Alcohol abuse and Teenage Pregnancy. Unfortunately, most rural America is without the necessary resources to adequate address the pandemic increase in drug and alcohol abuse. Macon Community Hospital will work in collaboration with other agencies to provide education in our community about Drug and Alcohol Abuse.

Macon Community Hospital does not have the resources that would be required to effect the changes that are needed to adequately address Teenage Pregnancy. However, we will continue to explore potential partnerships and internal strategies to find a way to provide these essential services to our patients. Every effort will be made to assist in teenage pregnancy.

Goals

The goals for addressing each of the priority area are the same but the strategies and objectives for each priority will differ according to need. The goals are:

Goal 1: Prevention and/or reduction of risk factors.

Goal 2: Detection and treatment of risk factors.

Goal 3: Collaborate to increase community capacity to deliver evidenced-based programs that support prevention and management of risk factors among high-risk populations.

Goal 4: Promote patient and community education to improve self-management of chronic disease.

Priority: Cancer

Objective 1: Educate our community on the importance of annual preventive testing/screenings.

Strategies:

  1. Macon Community will have an open house and invite the community in to educate them on preventive testing, i.e.; Mammography, Colonoscopy and the dangers of tobacco products.
  2. Education to the children and parents in Macon County on the dangers of tobacco products.
  3. Education to women about the importance of mammogram that have history of breast cancer, know your risk, schedule yearly screenings, know what is normal for you, and make healthy lifestyle choices.
  4. Wellness screenings will be held in the workplace and annual health fair events to promote awareness of prostate cancer. Screenings will be offered to all males and made aware of the PSA result from screening.

Priority: Heart Disease

Objective 1: Decrease population risk factors through cultural appropriate support.

Strategies:

  1. Promote environments that support prevention of heart disease, i.e. Healthy eating, increase physical activity, tobacco-free lifestyle, and moderate alcohol use.
  2. Target heart healthy education and prevention interventions among those in high-risk groups and groups with greater knowledge disparity.
  3. Promote inclusions of health activities (blood pressure screenings and lifestyle education) in non-traditional settings e.g. faith based organizations.

Objective 2: Enhance patient awareness of heart disease and the skills needed for self-management.

Strategies:

  1. Increase the number of adults (age 18 and older) who have a preventive procedure (blood pressure check, cholesterol screen, etc.) for heart disease.
  2. Collaborate with the health care community to develop and promote a public campaign for all individuals “to know their number” including blood pressure, Hemoglobin A1c and Cholesterol.

Objective 3: Improve cardiovascular health through work site wellness initiatives.

Strategies:

  1. Encourage worksites to educate their employees about their benefit package, including prevention services.
  2. Increase the number of worksites that provide incentives for their employees to complete a health risk assessment.
  3. Promote adoption of CDC’s “Six-Step Guide for Employers” outlying steps employers can take to improve cardiovascular health and prevent heart disease at the worksite.

Priority: Diabetes

Objective 1: Increase awareness of prevention and control/self-management of diabetes.

Strategies:

  1. Increase prevention behaviors in persons identified as being at high risk for diabetes, pre-diabetes, by working with providers to encourage prevention strategies in this population (i.e. encouraging them to increase physical activity, lose weight, reducing the amount of fat or calories in their diet and maintain provider/patient relationship to monitor disease).
  2. Increase participation in diabetes education classes via MCH and local health department as identified and available.
  3. Educate community members about the risk factors for diabetes by developing and distributing culturally appropriate public awareness material in Macon County.

Objective 2: Develop relationships with organizations/others who provide services/resources to underserved, low-income and racial/ethnic groups to provide culturally appropriate education to community members.

Strategies:

  1. Identify those who work with identified populations and partner with them to develop culturally appropriate strategies to monitor prevention initiatives.
  2. Develop and co-sponsor (or identify a sponsor) to support an initiative targeting improving/increasing diabetic screenings, education and services to the community.

Objective 3: Focus diabetes prevention efforts on reaching children and parents in an effort to prevent the development of the disease in children.

Strategies:

  1. Promote maternal and child health nutrition programs in schools, physician/provider visits, etc.
  2. Locally promote policies and laws which provide for accessible and affordable healthy food choices in the communities, schools, after school/summer programs in collaboration with Macon County Health Department.
  3. Promote breastfeeding in order to reduce infant under-nutrition and potential development of diabetes later in life.