Tanner Health System asks West Georgia and East Alabama residents to take triennial Community Health Needs Survey

Tanya Folkes, certified health coach and outreach operations manager for Tanner Health System’s Get Healthy, Live Well, urged residents across West Georgia and neighboring East Alabama counties on Friday to participate in the hospital system’s Community Health Needs Survey so the system can target programs and investments where they are most needed. "We need as many people to participate as possible," Folkes said during an interview on Community Voice, the News Talk 1330 WLBB program hosted by Josh Engle.

The triennial survey, required of nonprofit hospitals under the Affordable Care Act, collects information on access to care, chronic disease, social determinants such as transportation and housing, and mental-health needs. Tanner uses the results to inform program development, partnerships and funding decisions across communities including Carroll, Carrollton, Bremen, Buchanan and counties named on the program—Heard, Harrelson, Cleburne and Randolph—as well as its East Alabama service area.

Why it matters: The CHNA directs which services Tanner and its partners expand or create and feeds the hospital’s implementation plans for the next two to three years. Folkes noted that survey results have previously led to sustained local programs. "From the 2019 survey, Tanner led the efforts through our get healthy, live well department and building a coalition...and the work that they did in collaboration brought forth the Your Haven, a place for recovery," Folkes said. She added that Your Haven later formed its own board and incorporated as a 501(c)(3) community organization.

Get Healthy, Live Well operates as Tanner’s community benefit and population-health arm and offers a range of evidence-based programs to residents whether or not they are Tanner patients. Folkes told the program the team provides chronic disease education and management, transitional care management for patients after hospital discharge, a CDC-recognized Diabetes Prevention Program, and a "Food is Medicine" program for people with diabetes, hypertension and congestive heart failure. "We implemented the majority of our programs to be both hybrid, in person and virtual via Zoom," she said, citing access and transportation barriers identified in past CHNAs.

Tanner staff also cited partnerships and local placements that followed earlier CHNAs: behavioral-health resources placed in Carrollton City and Carroll County school systems (named in the interview as Willowbrook), the creation of Your Haven in Buchanan, and ongoing collaborations with local food banks, senior centers, libraries, faith organizations, Area Agencies on Aging and school systems. Tanner’s philanthropic arm, the Tanner Foundation, was described as a frequent grant partner though specific grant amounts were not disclosed during the interview.

Participation details and scope: Folkes asked residents of Carroll, Heard, Harrelson, Cleburne and Randolph counties, plus communities in Tanner’s East Alabama service area, to complete the online survey at tanner.org/chna-2020five and to check Tanner’s classes-and-events pages for upcoming programs (gethealthylivewell.org and tanner.org/classesandevents). The interviewer noted the survey has been conducted since 2013 and is repeated every three years; Folkes said the survey informs how Tanner will allocate resources and develop services over the next two to three years.

The interview included examples of program changes driven by CHNA results and an invitation for broad community participation; no formal votes or government actions were discussed on the program. Folkes thanked the community for its support and highlighted scheduled programming for 2025. She did not give a participation deadline or dollar figures for future funding on the air.

For more information and to take the survey, Folkes directed listeners to tanner.org/chna-2020five.