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Prioritize Health Needs

Though there may be many significant health needs in your community, your hospital might only have the capacity to address a subset of these needs. To successfully prioritize the significant health needs, establish criteria to determine a priority health need and implement a process to systematically apply those criteria.

Step 1: Set Criteria for Prioritized Health Needs

Establish which criteria participants should use to prioritize health needs before you begin. Here are some examples of criteria that can be used to prioritize:

  • Alignment with facility’s strengths/priorities/mission
  • Magnitude - number of people impacted by problem
  • Severity - the rate or risk of morbidity and mortality
  • Opportunity to intervene at prevention level
  • Opportunity for partnership
  • Addresses disparities of subgroups
  • Existing resources and programs to address problem
  • Solution could impact multiple problems
  • Feasibility of intervention
  • Availability of evidence-based approaches
  • Importance of problem to community
  • Economic burden on community
  • Consequences of not intervening
  • Evaluation results on the impact of actions taken to address the health need since your immediately preceding CHNA

Important Note for Hospitals:
The IRS requires that community input must be taken into consideration for prioritizing significant health needs from the following three groups: a) at least one representative of a state, regional or local governmental health department with knowledge of the health needs of the community; b) members of medically underserved, low-income, and minority populations in the community served by the hospital facility, or individuals or organizations serving or representing the interests of such populations; and c) written comments received on the hospital facility's most recently conducted CHNA and most recently adopted implementation strategy.

IRS Community Health Needs Assessment Rule 12/31/14

Step 2: Explore and Choose Prioritization Method

The following prioritization methods are examples of the types of different processes for you and your community to use.

DOT METHOD/DOTMOCRACY

Quick and simple method that works well with large groups. Individuals are given a set number of dots (stickers) and vote for the needs that they believe meet the established criteria.

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MULTI-VOTING TECHNIQUE

Great method to narrow a lot of options down to a few by allowing individuals to vote for a set number of topics in each round. After each round is completed, only the top results are included in the next round.

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NOMINAL GROUP TECHNIQUE

Ideal method for small groups of decision makers who have a deep knowledge of selection criteria. This method includes generating topics, recording topics, discussing topics and then voting on topics.

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STRATEGY GRID

Good method for using only two criteria and with groups of decision makers who have a deep knowledge of the criteria and the issues. The strategy grid allows decision makers to focus on topics that will have the best results.

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PRIORITIZATION MATRIX

Good for small to medium sized groups who are using multiple criteria to select priorities. In this method participants systematically analyze each priority based on the criteria.

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PAIRED COMPARISONS

An advanced method where participants compare pairs of health needs based on different criteria using a matrix.

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HANLON METHOD

A complex method that incorporates baseline data into an objective analysis of the criteria and the different health needs.

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Other Useful Resources

Sample prioritization worksheet from the CDC
Mind Tools

Tips for the Final Report

Make sure to document the prioritization process and criteria that you used and include the results.

From the IRS

These proposed regulations require the CHNA report to include prioritized description of the significant health needs of the community identified through the CHNA, along with a description of the process and criteria used in identifying certain health needs as significant and prioritizing those significant health needs.

IRS Community Health Needs Assessment Rule 12/31/14

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