INSIGHT & INSPIRATION FROM APHA’S 2012 MIDYEAR MEETING

18
Survive All In This Friends Prevention, Strategies
& Thrive Together For Health Opportunity & Equity for Health
and expertise in public health. Trocchio said that in conducting an assessment, the community
served is typically defined by geography, but that a hospital cannot gerrymander its definition in
a way that excludes certain populations.
Trocchio noted that the IRS leaves much of how an assessment is done to the hospital’s discretion;
however, the agency is specific about gathering input from those who represent community
interests — “this is to be a collaborative process,” she said. The same collaborative intention
frames the implementation strategy hospitals must develop to address the needs identified
during the assessment phase.
“Increasingly, hospitals are realizing that the health and the cost problems that we have really
do have community-based solutions,” Trocchio said.
From session 2001/2006, All in This Together: Public Health Community Benefit, June 27
Donald Berwick, former administrator of the
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, was the
the keynote speaker at APHA’s Midyear Meeting.