Project staff are developing a set of Critical Access Hospital community benefits and impact indicators and measures along with accompanying data collection strategies with input and guidance from an expert panel of hospital industry representatives, CAH administrators, and Flex Program Coordinators/SORH representatives. These indicators and measures will be developed within a framework that includes core components of community benefits and impact such as:

• Improved hospital financial and quality performance
• Hospital involvement/leadership in the development of services including primary care, specialty services, preventive care, chronic care/disease management, and/or community health improvement services and programs
• Hospital leadership in the development of a "seamless continuum of care" through linkages with local EMS, physicians, primary care practices such as Rural Health Clinics and Federally Qualified Health Centers, public health agencies, home health, and nursing facilities
• Hospital involvement and leadership in the development of community partnerships designed to address community health needs
• Hospital involvement/leadership in the development of a community level or regional service mix that avoids unnecessary duplication/redundancy and best meets the needs of the community and its vulnerable populations.

These data collections strategies and tools will be pilot tested in the spring of 2007 using 10 CAHs who will be asked to evaluate the proposed community benefits indicators and data collection tools. Upon review of the results of this pilot test with the expert panel, project staff will prepare a Briefing Paper for dissemination in the fall of 2007 on measuring the community benefits and impact of CAHs including the results of the pilot test and recommendations for the future strategy.

Publications

• Community Benefit Activities of Critical Access Hospitals, Non-Metropolitan Hospitals and Metropolitan Hospitals: National and State Data (State reports)
  Maine Rural Health Research Center
  Date: 03/2010
  Quality, financial, and community benefit indicators of critical access hospital (CAH) performance are being analyzed by the Flex Monitoring Team. Here, state-level data on performance of CAHs in each state are summarized.
• The Community Impact of Critical Access Hospitals
  Maine Rural Health Research Center, North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center, University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center
  Date: 02/2007
  This policy brief discusses the findings of a project to understand the community involvement and impact of critical access hospitals and the Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility Program (Flex Program).
• Exploring the Community Impact of Critical Access Hospitals
  Maine Rural Health Research Center, North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center, University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center
  Date: 01/2007
  This paper reports on a series of site visits to six diverse rural communities and critical access hospitals to assess the experiences and impact of these hospitals in responding to their community's health infrastructure needs.
• Monitoring the Community Benefits of CAHs: A Review of the Data (Briefing Paper)
  Maine Rural Health Research Center
  Date: 03/2010
  There is a growing national interest in the benefits provided by nonprofit and public hospitals to their communities in exchange for the tax benefits or public funding that they receive.
• Monitoring the Community Benefits of Critical Access Hospitals: A Review of the Data
  Policy Brief
  Maine Rural Health Research Center
  Date: 03/2010
  This brief examines the community benefit activities of critical access hospitals (CAHs) using data from the Flex Monitoring Team's (FMT) pilot test of a set of community benefit data collection tools and performance indicators, the Internal Review Service's (IRS) 2006 Hospital Compliance Study, and the 2007 FMT CAH survey.