Who was involved in the development of Montgomery County’s 2020-2022 CHIP?

Representatives from county and city government, education, hospitals and healthcare providers, managed care companies, non-profit organizations, local businesses, foundations, and civic organizations participated in a CHIP community meeting to select the health priorities and Workgroup meetings to create three-year workplans for each priority.

What are the priorities selected for the 2020-2022 CHIP?

Based on a review of the successes and challenges of the 2016-2019 CHIP and the data of the 2019 Community Health Assessment, attendees of the CHIP community meeting discussed options for the health priorities of the 2020-2022 CHIP. Group consensus determined that progress was still needed to improve the priorities identified in the previous CHIP.

The three priorities of the 2020-2022 Community Health Improvement Plan are:

Maternal & Infant Vitality*

Chronic Disease Prevention

Behavioral Health

*Birth Outcomes was changed to Maternal & Infant Vitality

How were the priority workplans developed?

Over four months, Workgroups met to identify goals, measurable objectives, potential strategies, and lead organizations to create priority workplans. These workplans create a roadmap for how the county will achieve priority goals and measure health improvement over the next three years.

What guiding principles influenced the development of the CHIP workplans?

The concepts of Collective Impact; Policy, Systems, and Environmental Changes (PSEC); and the impact of the Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) were considered during priority, goal, objective, and strategy selection. Additionally, alignment with other health improvement initiatives at the state and national levels were considered.

• Collective Impact can be achieved when “organizations from different sectors agree to solve a specific problem using a common agenda, aligning their efforts, and using common measures of success.”
• In order to have the greatest impact on health, it was important that the priorities selected for the CHIP align with state and national health priorities.
  
  
  
  
• Health is not only impacted by personal behaviors but also by the social and environmental conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age - Social Determinants of Health. Communities that are disproportionately affected by poverty, unstable housing, unsafe neighborhoods, limited access to healthy food, and substandard education face disparities in health outcomes due to their environment.
  
  
  
  
• Incorporating Policy, Systems, and Environmental (PSE) Change strategies into the CHIP ensures that long-term, sustainable improvements occur within our community.

While the CHIP is a community-driven and collectively owned health improvement plan, Public Health provides administrative support, tracks and collects data, and prepares quarterly and annual progress reports.

Using this online dashboard, the progress of each strategy will be reported quarterly and the status toward achieving the goals and objectives are updated annually.

A next assessment of the community’s health will be completed by 2021 and over the next year, the community will begin the process of selecting new health priorities with new workplans. A new community health improvement plan will be completed and ready for implementation by the beginning of 2023.