Assessment, Evaluation and Strategic Planning
with State and Federal Health Programs and Coalitions

I have been working closely with the Colorado Coalition for the Medically Underserved (CCMU) in it's endeavor to have all Coloradans enjoy unimpeded access to affordable, quality health care and preventive care programs by the year 2007. CCMU recently launched the Healthy Colorado Now Initiative, a statewide effort to determine the best options for providing access to affordable health insurance and quality health care for all Coloradans by the year 2007. CCMU adopted my state and community health improvement strategy for this initiative, as my strategy is designed to engage the media, policy makers and communities in a process of identifying and implementing insurance strategies for all Coloradans. I am serving the role of co-manager of this initiative, and the Coalition's report on the first phase of this effort, titled "Healthy Colorado Now: Coloradans' Preferences and Advice Around Health Insurance Coverage for All," can be found on the Coalition's web-site (link provided above).

I conducted the Social Reconnaissance (community meetings and strategy development) with each of ten Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Field Offices across the country. One underserved community in each of the ten HRSA regions of the United States was identified for this project. I worked with HRSA staff and the local communities to organize community meetings and develop and implement follow up strategies based on the information.

I conducted a national impact assessment for the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) - the federal program that provides assistance to medically underserved communities. This assessment incorporated community meetings, population based surveys of four communities, and an analysis of existing population health status data. A total of nine underserved communities across the country were involved in this project. Click here to view the National Health Service Corps 25th Anniversary Report in Adobe Acrobat Format. This information was also supplemented by over 40 structured vignette stories from NHSC sites around the country, all of which I collected. Click here to view the National Health Service Corps Vignette Report. These assessment data were factored into the NHSC reauthorization strategy in 1999-2000. Click here to view an individual community report (Kearney, Kansas) from this project.