Community health partnerships involving health departments, hospitals, government agencies, community and regional nonprofits, and local businesses have been using our Community Balanced Scorecard (CBSC) tools to develop and implement collaborative health improvement plans for priority issues in their communities. The CBSC strategy maps they have developed have been used to align the efforts of numerous partners to focus on desired health outcomes. CBSC tools were designed for achieving outcomes that cannot be achieved by a single organization, making them ideal for community, regional, or state health improvement efforts that depend on partnerships among many organizations. These tools provide additional benefits for public health departments and nonprofit hospitals:
- Nonprofit hospitals can use CBSC tools to meet their Affordable Care Act requirement to develop community health improvement implementation strategies. (Download brief PDF)
- Public health departments can use CBSC tools to align strategies for priority health issues with the domains of the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) so they can create state or community health improvement plans that satisfy a prerequisite of accreditation. Then, as they implement the plan, the improvements they achieve will help them document how they are meeting PHAB standards. (Download brief PDF)
CBSC tools can build upon programs already used in many communities, such as Mobilizing Action through Planning & Partnerships (MAPP) of the National Association of County & City Health Officials (NACCHO). MAPP communities (such as Hunterdon County, St. Clair County, and Osceola County below) have been using CBSC tools, and NACCHO and the national MAPP Work Group have been using them for national MAPP planning.
Project Highlights
We have helped community partnerships develop strategies and plans for a range of health improvement goals, including reducing obesity, increasing child wellness, eliminating preventable chronic disease, improving youth behavioral health outcomes, increasing access to care, improving social supports, and addressing determinants of health. They have been using CBSC strategy maps to build community support for change and obtain implementation commitments from partners. For example:
- A Hunterdon County, New Jersey, community health partnership used the RTM Team and our partner Insightformation, Inc.’s InsightVision software to develop strategy maps and begin building CBSCs for nutrition and fitness, and will use these tools for planning improvement for more community health priorities as part of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant.
-
- The Cheshire Medical Center Vision 2020 Team in Keene, Hew Hampshire, used the RTM Team to develop a “top level strategy map” for their healthy community initiative and facilitate the Council for a Healthier Community, a cross-sector leadership group, in determining the number and topics of community action planning groups. We have since helped the Vision 2020 Team work with their 5 action planning groups to develop strategy maps for healthy eating, active living, health education & awareness, determinants of health, and social networks to support health.
-
- The St. Clair County, Illinois, Health Department and Health Care Commission has been using the RTM Team and Insightformation, Inc., to develop and manage nutrition and fitness strategies for its Get Up & Go! campaign, which involves over 100 partners. They have been building a Community Balanced Scorecard and engaging partners to contribute to strategic objectives and commit to specific measurable results they will achieve.
-
- In Osceola County, Florida, the Health Department and Community Vision, Inc., used their strategy map to obtain the commitment of the Health Leadership Council, which includes the heads of major public, nonprofit, and charitable organizations (including hospitals and the county government), to convene a Community Health Summit to address access to care.
-
- Strategy mapping in Wood County, Ohio, led Bowling Green State University to train faculty and graduate assistants to recognize signs of potential mental health problems in students and refer them for screening and treatment before problems become severe. The strategy has also been used to start or increase suicide prevention programs in public schools and school districts in the county.
- In Montgomery County, Ohio, the Get Up Montgomery campaign for healthy lifestyles and obesity reduction has used both their strategy map and “Partner2Partner Handshakes,” their adaptation of the Community Results Compact tool we introduced, to develop strong commitments with numerous community partners.
View Our Free Recorded Webinar
Community Balanced Scorecards to Meet Public Health Challenges
Read the FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions on Community Balanced Scorecards in Public & Community Health
Additional Resources
- Improve Results for the Community and the Hospital While Meeting Affordable Care Act Requirements (PDF) briefly shows how CBSC tools can be used by hospitals and their community partners for these purposes, including examples involving community hospitals.
- Strategic Accreditation Preparation (PDF) is a short piece describing how CBSC tools can be used to achieve two of the three prerequisites for public health department accreditation.
- Our 2012 APHA conference presentation”CBSCs for Leading Collaborative Strategies to Achieve Community Health Outcomes“
- Our 2011 APHA conference presentation: “Use CBSCs to Mesh Strategic Planning, Health Improvement Planning, and Accreditation“
- Community Balanced Scorecards for MAPP Communities describes how CBSC is well matched with MAPP, with links to more resources, including “Quick Guides” relating CBSC and MAPP and a free NACCHO webinar on how CBSC tools make MAPP more effective.
- Briefing paper (PDF) “Community Balanced Scorecards for Strategic Public Health Improvement,” by Paul Epstein and Alina Simone.
- Community Health Strategy Management: Adding Value One Step at a Time (PDF) describes a step-by-step approach for implementing CBSC tools, enabling communities, hospitals, or states with limited resources to benefit from each step along the way without making a commitment in advance to building a complete system.
- Community Balanced Scorecards for Collaborative Community Health Strategies: Program for Getting Started (PDF) describes an affordable way community health organizations can start gaining benefits from CBSC tools, with ways for communities to participate on their own, or as part of state or regional groups.
- Strategic Planning in Public Health using CBSC tools
- Three chapters by Results That Matter Team members in The Public Health Quality Improvement Handbook of the Public Health Foundation and American Society for Quality.
Selected Clients
- Bergen County [New Jersey] Community Health Improvement Partnership
- Cheshire Medical Center, Keene, New Hampshire
- Hunterdon County Health Partnership, New Jersey
- National Association of County and City Health Officials
- Public Health – Dayton & Montgomery County, Ohio
- Public Health Foundation
- Osceola County [Florida] Health Department
- Saint Clair County [Illinois] Health Department
- Summit County [Ohio] Health District
- Wood County [Ohio] Health Department