Meet the 5 Goals of Public Health 3.0

Champ Software’s public health EHR, Nightingale Notes, helps public health agencies meet the 5 goals of Public Health 3.0.

Public health practice is being enhanced and broadened as pioneering local public health departments shift focus to address social determinants of health (or upstream determinants of health), collaborate across non-traditional sectors, and embrace the role of the Chief Health Strategist. Both public health practice and policy are transforming to address changing population health challenges. This public health modernization is what the US Department of Health & Human Services is calling, “Public Health 3.0″. You can read more about Public Health 3.0 here.

Both public health practice and policy are transforming to address changing population health challenges. This public health modernization is what the US Department of Health & Human Services is calling, “Public Health 3.0″.

In 2016, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH), US Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) released a whitepaper entitled, Public Health 3.0: A Call to Action to Create a 21st Century Public Health Infrastructure which really defines the entire thrust of Public Health 3.0. Public Health 3.0 focuses on 5 core recommendations (or goals) for public health departments.

What are the 5 goals of Public Health 3.0?

Health departments will own the role of a Chief Health Strategist, driving initiatives in their community, especially upstream interventions to address social determinants of health.
Public Health departments should engage in cross-sector collaboration between other health departments, intra-governmental departments, and community entities (such as hospitals, clinics, and other local businesses).
Health departments should seek accreditation from the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB).
Health departments should collect and compile timely, reliable, granular-level, actionable data to guide, focus, and assess the impact of prevention initiatives, and they should make this data accessible to the community.
Funding for public health should be enhanced and substantially modified, and innovative funding models should be explored so as to expand financial support for Public Health 3.0–style leadership and prevention initiatives.

How can we help you meet the 5 goals of Public Health 3.0?

Goal #1: Embrace the Role of Chief Health Strategist

According to HHS’s whitepaper, “Public health leaders should embrace the role of Chief Health Strategist for their communities—working with all relevant partners so that they can drive initiatives including those that explicitly address “upstream” social determinants of health.” The Community Health Strategist is integral to coalition-led efforts that transform public health.

How does Champ Software’s Nightingale Notes help?

We provide the tools to help public health departments share and communicate information as they perform the role of a chief health strategist. Our reports and dashboards can leverage any piece of data you put into our system, providing you with proof of outcomes, trend data, and the ability to evaluate your community and your interventions. Potential community health issues can be addressed upstream, at the source, rather than waiting to treat the issue once it has become a problem.

Goal #2: Engage in Cross-Sector Collaboration

HHS’s whitepaper describes this as a goal to engage with public and private community partners in order to form “vibrant, structured, cross-sector partnerships” to guide PH 3.0 initiatives, diversify resources, and foster collective action.

How does Champ Software’s Nightingale Notes help?

Our participation in groups like the Minnesota State University– Mankato Health Informatics Advisory Board helps us keep our finger on the pulse of what is happening and enables us to provide public health departments with a seat at the table to join in cross-sector discussions at a community level.

In addition, Champ Software’s Nightingale Notes EHR is founded on the Omaha System standardized taxonomy. Pat Stewart, Director of Des Moines Valley Public Health & Human Services (since retired) shared in an interview with Champ Software about how her agency had been able to exchange data with their Accountable Care Organization and form partnerships to advance health in their community because of how this standardized taxonomy allowed them to share data.

Pat shared, “Nightingale Notes has allowed us to get in the sandbox and play with the other deliverers of healthcare: the clinics, hospitals, and mental health facilities.”

“Nightingale Notes has allowed us to get in the sandbox and play with the other deliverers of healthcare: the clinics, hospitals, and mental health facilities.” — Pat Stewart, PHN, Director, DVHHS (Since Retired)

Goal #3: Seek PHAB Accreditation

According to HHS’s whitepaper, “Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) criteria and processes for department accreditation should be enhanced and supported so as to best foster Public Health 3.0 principles, as we strive to ensure that every person in the United States is served by nationally accredited health departments.”

How does Champ Software’s Nightingale Notes help?

Many Champ Software Nightingale Notes users have already achieved PHAB Accreditation and many more are currently pursuing accreditation.

Gretchen Sampson, MPH, RN, Community Services Director, Polk County Health Department shared about her health department’s accreditation process during a webinar presentation this spring, “We have used [Nightingale Notes] to measure health indicators for our PNCC population. We created a help outcomes tab… to document how we are doing with smoking cessation, depression assessment, safe sleep and birth weight of babies born to moms in this program… another helpful tool is the KBS rating scale in Nightingale Notes which can measure the impact of your work with populations.”

Goal #4: Gather Timely, Relevant, Actionable Data

“Timely, reliable, granular (i.e., sub-county), and actionable data should be made accessible to communities throughout the country, and clear metrics to document success in public health practice should be developed in order to guide, focus, and assess the impact of prevention initiatives, including those targeting the social determinants of health and enhancing equity,” according to HHS’s whitepaper.

How does Champ Software’s Nightingale Notes help?

At the foundation of Nightingale Notes is the Omaha System standardized terminology. This gives health departments the power to extract any piece of data in a visual and meaningful way, prove outcomes, find trends, clearly identify problems in the community and which interventions are effective, and develop strategies. We help you transform information into intelligence that can be used for decision making.

Departments like Kitsap County Public Health District and many other customers have shared about their success in using these tools. We invite you to see for yourself by reading one of their stories!

Kitsap County Public Health District: Success in Measuring Outcomes (Click Here to Read)

Suzanne Plemmons, MN, RN, PHCNS-BC, and then-Community Health Director (since retired) stressed the importance of being able to really look at outcome data, “We are able to do that because we have an EHR that is based on the Omaha System and so we do have the outcome rating scale to look at. But we’re also able to accurately describe our population as far as numbers, ages, ethnicity, educational level, marital status, poverty level, all of those kinds of things. So we really get a good picture of who we’re serving. And we can accurately describe our services.

“We actually have an opportunity to look at the results of our outcomes report and make some changes in our practice,” Suzanne said, explaining how Kitsap Public Health District is able to use reports from Omaha System data in Nightingale Notes EHR as a quality improvement tool. “We are able to see where we have missing data [and] where people are not accurately using the documentation standards we’ve developed.”

Goal #5: Explore Innovative Funding

HHS’s whitepaper charges, “Funding for public health should be enhanced and… innovative funding models should be explored so as to expand financial support for Public Health 3.0–style leadership and prevention initiatives.”

How does Champ Software’s Nightingale Notes help?

Empowering you to meet goals 1-4 opens up new funding avenues. We also help you leverage current resources efficiently.

We continue to monitor changes in the payor system and modify our software to ensure that public health departments can bill to all payors for all services efficiently. We also have an integrated clearinghouse to ensure timely payments from payors.

We provide tools such as dashboards, reports, and queries, that help health departments determine and prove the effectiveness of programs from both a clinical and economic perspective. This allows health departments to generate funding for programs showing a return on investment (ROI) and address programs that are not showing an ROI.

On using those tools to continue funding priority programs, Suzanne Plemmons said, “This is valuable information to be able to share with our policy makers, our funders, and our executive leadership team here.”