NRMC board approves health needs assessment

Along with passing a $92.5 million budget Tuesday, the Nevada Regional Medical Center board of directors approved the Community Health Needs Assessment as required by the Affordable Care Act as a condition of retaining tax exempt status.

Partnering with Quorum Health Services, NRMC gathered and compiled data that will be used for tax years beginning March 23, 2012. The assessment must be done every three years to determine several factors.

The purpose of the assessment is to identify primary health needs of county residents, review statistical data, survey local expert advisors, assess focus group information gathered by Healthy Nevada and create a compliant report to be published by June 30.

The assessment -- presented to the board by Community Relations Director Judy Herstein -- identified 27 distinct opportunities for health care improvement in the county. Only nine areas were contained in the assessment and Herstein concentrated on four of those during her presentation.

The nine areas were affordability, obesity/overweight, cancer, smoking/ tobacco use, mental health/suicide, physician/ retention, dentists, coronary/heart disease and accidents. Herstein concentrated on four -- obesity, cancer, tobacco and physician/retention.

Obesity, cancer, and tobacco use were chosen because of their effects on the health of the county community and physicians/retention was chosen because of the challenges associated with recruiting and retaining skilled medical professionals in rural areas.

Herstein spoke briefly about each topic and informed the board on what measures were being undertaken to improve the quantity or quality of care in each area. Education, increased service opportunities and coordinated efforts and other things would be used to develop indicators of progress in each area. All nine topics would get attention, but time constraints limited Herstein's presentation to just four.