An update of the Panhandle Community Health Improvement Plan is now officially underway, as the Panhandle Public Health District hosted a kick-off meeting in Bridgeport Thursday, meeting with hospital officials, healthcare professionals and other partners.
Included in the gathering at Prairie Winds Community Center was an update on current health statistics and issues in the Panhandle and the state, details on the regional Crisis Stabilization project, and sessions aimed at broadly defining pertinent topics.
PPHD’s Community Health Planner, Megan Barhafer, explains the goals of the process that will produce a three-year evolving document. “The purpose is really to go beyond the, everyday things that we think of that impact health in terms of like hospital care. We’re trying to address factors that are underlying causes of health. So we look at things, like, ways that we can do more prevention work and ways that we can collaborate together to make sure people find the gaps.
Key areas of concern in the 2023 document included healthcare access, child care, housing and behavioral health, some of which Barhafer expects will carry-over into the new plan.
She also says based on conversations in the fall, she expects access and affordability of healthy food will become a much larger conversation topic.
Staff will continue gathering information over the course of the year before the document update is completed, but that won’t be the end of the process. Barhafer says the CHIP is meant to be a living document, to be added to and amended as information updates or changes during the course of the next few years.
Members of the public can contribute to the process by taking a related survey at pphd.ne.gov.