12 Years of Community Health Assessments | How has the Industry Evolved? How are we Transforming Health Professions Education?

I am pleased to promote MedStar Health’s 2024 Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA). Georgetown University’s School of Health is the health system’s official academic partner for this body of work. Informed by the IRS mandate, our first assessment was published in 2012.

How is the industry intellectually evolving?

We have come a long way since 2012. Since the healthcare sector has been historically biomedically postured, our first assessment prioritized indicators such as access to care, and “medically” managing a population’s biomarkers. While these are necessary aspects of our work, the field is evolving towards a biopsychosocial approach in how care is operationalized.

As presented in our 2024 assessment, we dig deeper and ask participants questions around injustice, exposure to racism (real or perceived), trust, and civic engagement (which is a Healthy People 2030 indicator). As part of our methodology, we also recognized intersectionality and cultural humility as prerequisites for establishing open, honest, and meaningful connections with individuals and communities. And to help clinicians and decision-makers better understand contemporary trends by place and race, historians and social scientists played a key role.

Collectively, we believe these approaches unearth norms that perpetuate harm, and conversely, offer insight into reconceptualized practices and policies that prioritize personalized, whole-person care.

How are we Transforming Health Professions Education?

First, it is important to note that students value opportunities to do real work that is making a real-time impact. Engaging undergraduate and graduate health professions students in the CHNA process can be one of the most insightful aspects of their education. For example, for the 2024 CHNA, students: 1) compiled and synthesized primary and secondary data (over 10,000 surveys were completed); 2) participated in qualitative data collection by attending community input sessions and capturing key themes; 3) contributed to the review and editorial process.

This form of experiential learning sharpened their ability to demonstrate systems thinking, and value the importance of community-based partnerships to meet the holistic needs of patients in real time. Moreover, they explored how public policy can advance or compromise public health. They delved into behavioral economics and how it can shape a patient’s experience. And they obtained competencies around community engagement and co-creation of novel interventions. Through our medical legal partnership, they witnessed how legal interventions can ensure entitlements are realized for the most vulnerable, as well as how legal interventions in primary care settings can change behavior or precipitate removal of bad actors from the ecosystem.

Purpose-Driven Work

In 2015, I separated from the formal healthcare sector because at that time, it was clear to me that new competencies would be needed in governance, leadership, and management if we are committed to improving the health of the nation. The lessons our students learned throughout this process do not reflect the westernized mental model of how we think about healthcare. And this is what brings me so much fulfillment.

At the School of Health, we are preparing a new generation with skills to critique the status quo, think bold, shape policy, and forge relationships across disciplines and sectors – all for the sake of advancing health.

This is what we are called to do.

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