Flathead City-County Health Department, North Valley Hospital and Kalispell Regional Healthcare are working together to create a plan to improve health in the community for the next three years. They held two public forums last week to receive comment on the needs of the community with a total turnout of about 22 people.

Health Care Reform Legislation, also called the Affordable Care Act, requires nonprofit hospitals perform a community health needs assessment every three years. The Public Health Department is also required every five years to complete an assessment and improvement plan to become accredited. The department decided to complete the assessment with the hospitals. The needs assessment is used as a guide for developing the Community Health Improvement Plan. The first and current Community Health Improvement Plan was created in 2014.

They don’t have data to show if community health improved in the past years, but they have already met the strategies set in the last plan, Deputy Health Officer Hillary Hanson said. One accomplishment is that they increased the number of providers and appointments, especially for dental health.

The needs assessment began in June 2015 when they mailed surveys to 800 randomly chosen Flathead County residents. The return rate was low with only 161 completed. However, this matches the average return rate across the state, Hanson said.

The respondents placed alcohol or substance abuse, obesity and cancer as the top three concerns. Also a concern were mental health issues, depression and suicide.

They also held focus groups with senior citizens, physically challenged and local community members and conducted 10 interviews with key informants in the industry. These responses focused on the need for affordable services, mental health services, transportation, services for an aging community and more walking paths.

Hanson said it seems that the priorities of the community will be similar to three years ago. They are such large issues that three years is not enough time to effect “meaningful change” she said. The assessment will be completed in mid-February, and the improvement plan will be done a few weeks after that.

The assessment may be accessed at http://flatheadhealth.org/data-and-reports/. For more information, call Hillary Hanson at 751-8155.