Piedmont hospitals have completed their respective Community Health Needs Assessments (CHNAs), which is part of their regulatory responsibility as part of a not-for-profit health system, and will begin implementation on Nov. 15 of new strategies to improve the overall health of the communities they serve.

Piedmont’s Community Benefit team performed interviews throughout Georgia with more than 200 stakeholders, who provided insight into the particular health needs in their respective communities.

“Piedmont exists to serve its communities and the Community Health Needs Assessment helps us to see the areas in which our resources can make a positive difference in the lives of community members who are most in need,” said Piedmont Vice President of External Affairs Thomas Worthy. “Piedmont empowers Georgians by helping them to reach their full potential and by being more responsive to the needs of our communities we are helping the citizens of Georgia to live healthier, fuller lives.”

Among the priorities that Piedmont Columbus Regional’s board of directors have identified are:

Ensure affordable access to health, mental, and dental care for all community members, and especially those that are low income and/or uninsured
Decrease preventable instances of diabetes and decrease the number of patients with uncontrolled diabetes
Reduce preventable instances of and death from cancer
Decrease the impact of and deaths from stroke
Reduce rates of obesity and increase access to healthy foods and recreational activities
“We are grateful for the community’s feedback and participation in this most recent assessment. As a leading healthcare provider of this community for almost 200 years, it is vitally important that we continue to provide coordinated, high-quality care and services,” said Scott Hill, Piedmont Columbus Regional CEO. “We are committed to addressing health equity issues and leading change in our community by providing access to healthy foods and education, and meeting people where they are through our mobile health efforts.”

A CHNA is a measurement of the relative health or well-being of a given community. It's both the activity and the end-product of identifying and prioritizing unmet community health needs, which is performed by:

Gathering and analyzing data
Soliciting the feedback of the community and key stakeholders
Evaluating Piedmont’s past work and future opportunities
Through this assessment, Piedmont is better informed to understand local health challenges, identify health trends in our communities, determine gaps in the current health delivery system and craft a plan to address those gaps and the identified health needs.

This is the fourth Piedmont CHNA, with the others having been conducted in 2013, 2016 and 2019. The current Piedmont CHNA will serve as a foundation for developing our community benefit strategies and further strengthening our community work.