Only six in ten non-profit hospitals are completing a community health needs assessment (CHNA) and publicly reporting the results and corresponding action plan online, according to data published in JAMA Network Open as a research note. The data shows 40 percent of non-profit hospitals are failing to fulfill a key provision mandated under the Affordable Care Act in order to maintain that non-profit status, writes writes Patient Engagement HIT.
Community health needs assessments (CHNAs) are assessments of the wellness needs within a given community. The US government began mandating CHNAs as part of the ACA to ensure non-profit hospitals were producing community benefits with the costs saved from certain tax exemptions.
Non-profit hospitals are required to conduct a CHNA every three years and use that assessment to devise an intervention plan. Hospitals must also make those documents publicly available, usually on the hospital website. But not every non-profit hospital is fulfilling that duty, revealed an assessment of 500 randomly selected non-profit hospitals in the US.
Read more:
- Patient Engagement HIT: https://patientengagementhit.com/news/40-of-hospitals-dont-publish-community-health-needs-assessment
- US Nonprofit Hospitals’ Community Health Needs Assessments and Implementation Strategies in the Era of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. JAMA Network Open. August 24 2021