What is a Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP)?
A Community Health Improvement Plan, or CHIP, is an action-oriented strategic plan outlining the priority health issues for a defined community and how these issues will be addressed-including strategies and measures-to ultimately improve the health of the ommunity. CHIPs are created through a community-wide, collaborative action planning process that engages partners
and organizations to develop, support, and implement the plan. A CHIP is intended to serve as a vision for the health of the community and a framework for organizations to use in leveraging resources, engaging partners, and identifying their own priorities and strategies for community health improvement.
This CHIP is intended to help focus and solidify each of our key partner agency’s commitment to improving the health of the community in specific areas. The goal is that through sustained, focused effort on this overarching framework, a wide range of public health partners and stakeholders engaged in assessment, planning, and action will be able to document measured improvement on these key health issues over the coming years.
The next phase will involve broad implementation of the action plan details included in this CHIP, and monitoring/evaluation of the CHIP’s short-term and long-term outcomes and indicators.
This 2013 CHIP is focused on creating plans within a six-month to three-year timeline. The community health improvement process is iterative and involves continuous monitoring: we plan to release an annual update of this document in December 2013, and again in December 2014. The next community health assessment will be conducted in 2015.
How to Use this CHIP
This CHIP is designed to be a broad, strategic framework for community health, and will be a “living” document that will be modified and adjusted as conditions, resources, and external environmental factors change. It has been developed and written in a way that engages multiple voices and multiple perspectives. We are working towards creating a unified effort that helps improve the health and quality of life for all people who live, work, and play in our county.
We encourage you to review the priorities and goals, reflect on the suggested intervention strategies, and consider how you can join this call to action: individually, within your organizations, and collectively as a community. To get involved or for questions about the purpose of this document, please contact Deana Stephens at (828) 649-3531.
Click Here to view or print a copy of the 2013 Madison County Community Health
Improvement Plan.