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Community Health Services Development
The Montana Office of Rural Health is currently working with seven healthcare facilities in Montana for the Community Health Services Development project. The seven communities selected received a technical assistance grant to enhance health services in their community. The program is funded through the Montana Healthcare Research and Education Foundation (MHREF) and the Montana Office of Rural Health (MORH)’s Community Health Services Development Program (CHSD).
Communities Participating in CHSD:
The healthcare facility and the community receive assistance designed to help the community stabilize their health care delivery system. This program was developed by the University of Washington School of Medicine. It has been used in other Montana communities as a way to develop and maintain quality health care to serve the continuing and future needs of the community.
The CHSD Program promotes the following:
- health care is a local affair;
- health care delivered in rural communities is affordable, high quality, and necessary to the good health of the entire community;
- citizens of rural communities/counties should take responsibility for the health of the community;
- most communities face a larger number and greater array of issues than usually acknowledged;
- adequate dollars exist to maintain local health care delivery systems; and
- effective problem-solving by communities is the most important factor in the survival of rural health services.
“We are very pleased to be working with these seven communities for the CHSD project,” said Kristin Juliar, Director of the Montana Office of Rural Health. “The hospital leadership is committed to involving the communities in looking at the future of healthcare, and building strong healthcare delivery that will serve the community for years to come.”
Citizens and organizations will have several opportunities to provide ideas, information and comments. Through this process each facility formed a local steering committee, surveys were sent to all households, as well as focus groups held in each community. Community meetings will be held to discuss survey results and the future of health care in the area.
Resources for Community Strategic Planning
Rural Health Resource Center and Northwest Area Foundation
Culture of Wellness is an initiative funded by the Northwest Area Foundation, in collaboration with the national Rural Health Resource Center based in Duluth, Minnesota and the Montana Office of Rural Health. The purpose of this initiative is to assist rural communities in designing and implementing broad-based strategies to optimize the health of their citizens, including diverse populations.
Culture of Wellness helps communities identify their most important health concerns and develop community goals and strategies to address these concerns. This project includes the CHSD community survey, as well as an economic impact assessment to identify assets and needs in the health care system. A community council is then created to help develop and carry out strategies to address the identified needs. Essentially, a Culture of Wellness community will evaluate its strengths and weaknesses, create a vision for the future, develop strategies to achieve the vision, and implement a health scorecard to communicate direction and monitor progress.
The initiative hopes to enhance access to needed health care services and information and develop a community-driven model that promotes well-being. By enhancing access to information and services, community health is improved, thereby creating a positive influence on economic growth in the health care sector and the community.
Communities participating in the Culture of Wellness project are:
History
The Community Health Services Development Program (CHSD Program) was initiated in 1987 at approximately the same time the Montana Office of Rural Health (MORH) was started at Montana State University. The CHSD Program evolved as an affiliate of the Regional WWAMI AHEC Program of the University of Washington School of Medicine (UWSM).
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