Framework

This is the fourth Community Health Needs Assessment conducted by Baptist Health Madisonville. This document builds on the research and conclusions of the first, second, and third assessments. Although several of the health priorities identified in the third assessment remain, committee identified some new priorities that were also of urgency. The groups that first cooperated to discuss the health needs of the community now meet on a regular basis to gauge the effectiveness of their activities and to plan additional steps to continue improving the health status of people in the community.

Baptist Health Madisonville and the other hospitals in Baptist Health use a strategic planning model as the framework to construct this report. It is similar to the method used for the hospital’s strategic plan; data is gathered about the hospital and its community, areas of opportunity and need are identified, and strategies for meeting these needs are formulated. Because the focus of this report is more external, additional efforts examined factors in the community.

The hospital’s service area is based on the nature of its communities (primarily rural), using the most recent patient origin data (April 2020 to March 2021), including over 3 quarters of its total discharges in the counties chosen. Further information about this area is found in the section headed Service Area, on pages five, six, and seven.

Baptist Health Madisonville has formed a community health coalition with other healthcare, civic, governmental, and educational organizations in the area for the purpose of working collaboratively to identify and address the medical and socioeconomic factors impacting the health of the people in its region. Bringing these groups together may help avoid duplication of efforts in data collection and resource allocation. Through these contacts and public surveys, Baptist Health Madisonville collected primary data and feedback on the health issues confronting its service area.

Baptist Health Madisonville’s Community Health Needs Assessment committee met several times to develop the public survey instrument and identify mechanisms by which the survey would be distributed to reach a representative sample of the population, to include demographic groups often underrepresented in public data gathering consider all the information. They discussed the data presented and created a list of the health issues identified in both primary and secondary data sources. After robust interaction, the committee prioritized the list and discussed various ways the hospital could help to meet these needs. After these were incorporated, the CHNA was approved by the hospital and System Boards.

Secondary data from demographic and socioeconomic sources, Kentucky vital statistics, disease prevalence and health indicators and statistics were collected from national, state and local sources. This data will be shared in the next section.

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