Guest Column

Help avert a health crisis

By JEAN RAGS, Guest Columnist
Published August 29, 2007

Did you know that nearly 18,000 non-elderly residents in Hernando County have no form of health insurance?

Did you know that since 2000, mental health hospitalization rates have exceeded the statewide rate four out of five years, or that Hernando County now exceeds the state mortality rate for all the leading causes of death in Florida, with the exceptions of pneumonia and influenza?

If your answer to these questions is no, you soon will have the opportunity to get involved and learn more about the health status of Hernando County.

In 2001, the Hernando County Health Care Advisory Board, which was appointed by the County Commission and charged with monitoring the needs of the county's residents, established a subcommittee of health care providers, community professionals and consumers to develop a Community Health Needs Assessment.

That assessment yielded key findings that allowed the community to focus on the top four health issues: heart disease, diabetes, medication access and primary care. As a result of the 2001 assessment, a federal award was approved to open a federally qualified community health center in partnership with the county Health Department to meet the growing need for primary care services.

The health needs assessment is designed to provide key findings and recommendations affecting health access and outcomes over a five-year period. At the beginning of 2005, the Health Care Advisory Board again began the process of conducting a needs assessment.

The subcommittee, along with staff support, secured community resources to fund the assessment. The Well Florida Council was engaged to oversee and conduct it. The results were released in October 2006 and will be used in an ongoing process for the next five years.

Since the release of this document, subcommittee members have been meeting with the local news media and developing a strategic plan to educate and involve our community in addressing the assessment's key findings and recommendations.

In the coming months, your quest to learn more about the health status of Hernando County will be as close to you as your daily newspaper, the Internet, radio or television news.

Through the combined efforts of the subcommittee members, and all of our media partners, you will be encouraged to learn more about what is happening in Hernando County related to community health and how you can get involved and make a difference.

Hopefully, if your answers to my opening questions were no, you will embrace this opportunity to encourage and empower our community as a whole to be more responsible for its own physical and mental well-being, and to work at reallocating resources already spent in the local health care system to encourage more accessibility, higher quality and better outcomes.

Finally, the subcommittee, in partnership with the media, our health care community and local consumers, will be asked to participate in the first Community Health Summit to be held in the late fall or early spring to discuss how Hernando County can address the needs assessment initiatives and meet its goal to be a healthier Hernando by 2010.

Do you think that you can make a difference in improving community health? If your answer is yes, please watch for future news articles and get involved.

Jean Rags is the director of the Hernando County Health & Human Services Department and liaison to the Health Care Advisory Board. She can be reached at jeanr@hernandocounty.us

[Last modified August 28, 2007, 21:31:24]