Summary of the Community Needs Assessment 2004:

1. The BMH Community Health Needs Assessment is a report required by Act 53 whose purpose is to identify and prioritize the health care needs of the community. Brattleboro Memorial Hospital collaborated with Retreat Healthcare on the mental health and substance abuse portions of the assessment. The methodology used to create the report was to form a Community Advisory Committee consisting of health care professionals, local government officials, community organizations and local businesses. The Advisory Committee met in August 2004 to review proposal plans for accomplishing the assessment and to recommend area residents to participate in focus groups. The group met again in late October 2004 to discuss the draft of the report and to prioritize the identified health needs.

Qualitative data sources for the report were three focus groups and public input at the Public Comment meeting. Quantitative data sources were over 60 tables of data from the Vermont Department of Health working in cooperation with the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems. Public input was sought through the gathering of qualitative data from three focus groups and from the public meeting. The public meeting, held solely for the purpose of gathering feedback on the draft CHNA report, was on November 16, 2004 at the Robert H. Gibson River Garden in downtown Brattleboro. BMH’s Vice President for Professional Services, Prudence MacKinney presented a summary of the draft report. Local citizen Christopher Brown moderated a discussion on the health priorities of the BMH service area. Attendees were also encouraged to complete their own health issue prioritizing survey. About 60 people attended the meeting including Board members, Advisory Committee members, members of the public and employees of BMH and Retreat Healthcare. Sixteen prioritizing surveys were returned.


2. The top three issues identified by the Community Advisory Committee are:

• Reducing Obesity. Indicators include 51.55% of the adult population is over a healthy weight.
• Reducing financial barriers to seeking healthcare. Indicators include 13.3% of the population over age 18 reported there was a time when they could not afford to see a doctor and 13.5% of the population does not have health insurance. Focus groups mentioned this issue as a major concern. The responses from the public at the comment meeting also ranked financial barriers as a top concern.
• Increasing access to mental health and psychiatric services for children. Indicators: the focus groups discussed this issue extensively including the fact that access to mental health resources by children with Medicaid or no insurance is inadequate. 14.7% of the respondents to the Youth Risk Behavior survey reported making a suicide plan in the last 12 months.
• The other two top concerns of the members of the public at the November 16th 2004 public meeting were: Improving access to elder services including nursing homes, adult day care and assisted living and increased availability/access to homecare/home health care services. Indicators addressing these issues include the high occupancy rate of area nursing homes, and high numbers of focus group respondents who identified these two issues as priority community needs.

3. Consumers may obtain copies of the BMH 2004 Assessment by calling Nicole Zinn, BMH professional services assistant at 257-8833. Nicole can also refer any detailed questions on the assessment to the appropriate person.