Tregg Geren

The 2025-2028 Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) is a collaborative effort by Citizens Memorial Hospital and the Polk County Health Center to address critical health needs in the Bolivar community. Developed from a comprehensive Community Health Needs Assessment, the plan focuses on three priority health issues: chronic disease, mental health, and access to care. It outlines actionable strategies and objectives to prevent disease, promote wellness, and protect the physical and mental health of all residents over the specified period.

This CEO update outlines CMH's strategic direction, emphasizing a patient-centric approach grounded in excellence, high reliability, and zero harm. Key initiatives include enhancing physician leadership in care planning, expanding critical service lines such as nephrology, dialysis, and oncology through strategic partnerships, and increasing access to behavioral health services. The plan also focuses on leveraging community support to drive service expansion and foster growth within the Bolivar and surrounding communities.

This document details the strategic plan for CH, aimed at achieving organizational excellence through a Baldrige process. The plan outlines key objectives across service, people, finance, and quality. Service goals focus on expanding offerings and improving patient experience to the 75th percentile. People goals target high employee engagement and satisfaction (90th percentile) and address compensation and turnover. Financial objectives include preparing for ICD10 implementation, managing operating margins, labor costs, cash flow, and revenue growth. Quality initiatives aim to reduce falls with injury, ensure timely care, enhance patient care continuum, and improve pain and alarm management. The organization emphasizes continuous improvement, strategic growth, and sustaining healthcare within its communities.

The strategic plan for CMH is a three-year initiative, with a refreshed version for fiscal year 25 being rolled out in June 2024. The plan focuses on several key areas: enhancing quality and patient safety through a journey to high reliability, fostering growth by expanding services and facilities, increasing patient access to care through initiatives like online scheduling for mammograms and walk-in clinics, and improving staffing by hiring committed full-time personnel to reduce reliance on temporary staff. The overarching goal is to achieve better, safer, and higher-quality patient care.

This Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) was conducted by Citizens Memorial Hospital District in 2013 to comply with federal regulations. The assessment identifies critical health needs within its service area, including high rates of adult smoking, obesity, and physical inactivity, a significant uninsured population, and insufficient access to mental health and dental providers. The hospital's implementation plan outlines strategies to address these challenges through programs such as smoking cessation, senior wellness initiatives, school health screenings, efforts to reduce the uninsured rate, expansion of mental health services, and continued support for pediatric dental care. The plan emphasizes improving population health and increasing access to healthcare services, while striving to maintain core services amidst funding constraints.