Running Head:IPLANNINIZERS

IPLANninizers of Kane County

Northern Illinois University

PHHE 469-1

Irene Cruz (Organization Capacity Assessment)

Chanelle Jones (Community Health Plan)

Kevin McKenzie (Accessibility, Availability…)

Omotola Okunuga (Reliability and Validity. . .)

Shqiponja Zeneli (Community Health Needs Assessment)

Organization Capacity Assessment

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“The Illinois Project for Local Assessment of Needs (IPLAN) is a community health

assessment and planning process that is conducted every five years by local health jurisdictions

in Illinois. This is to help county improve their living rates in their area. This help developed

different or more programs for their community to make residents more health. In Kane County,

it is reference as Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP).

A Community Health Improvement Plan is a long-term, systematic effort to address

health problems in a community based on results from a community health assessment. The plan

recommends priorities for action and is used by health and other governmental, education, and

social service agencies and organizations to implement policies and programs that promote

health.

The Kane County’s community health needs assessment is found within the required

government IPLAN section. Kane County IPLAN, which is known as the CHIP (Community

Health Improvement Plan), obeys to the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH)

requirements. Kane County’s CHIP met this requirement by conducting their assessment every

five years as well as providing their goal for the next five years.

The first thing for a IPLAN, is should be well put together it needs to have some type

format that things are easy to find. Well organized, there should be pages number, subtitles listed

and maybe a table of contents. Also known as capacity which means, the abstract term that

describes a wide range of capabilities, knowledge, and resources that nonprofits need in order to

be effective. According to Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, it is “the rededication to

achieving results.” Organizational capacity is multi-faceted and continually evolving. Six

components of organizational capacity are necessary for high performance: governance and

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leadership; mission, vision, and strategy; program delivery and impact.; strategic relationships;

resource development; and internal operations and management.

In Kane’s CHIP, it is well put together from it’s title page to the reference page. There

content meets all the state requirements that they are required to included. Someone could easy

follow the format of the plan since it has the bold words when it is translation from different

topics. Throughout the plan Timmreck’s “10-step Planning Model” is used in the development

of their future goals. It goes really in depth with multiple sub- categories to express their

thoughts within each group. Also to show how the past goals were meet or still being worked on.

The purpose of the IPLAN is to be unique for its assigned area which Kane county has

meet that goal. It starts with the reference of the documentation which is the CHIP unlike

DeKalb’s which it is still IPLAN. I really like that in Kane’s there is color and many graphs

which makes it more presentable. I would not mind working with Kane County’s since it looks

to be more modernized unlike DeKalb’s which looks like a dull documentation. There is similar

data presented but different ways of approaching it since they are different population.

The community health needs assessment as stated by the CDC “identifies key health

issues and needs through systematic data collection and analysis”. This assessment is known to

determine the strengths and identify the weaknesses of Kane County. The community health

needs assessment primarily serves as a structure to improve health problems within the county.

Kane County states that their goal is to” identify areas where we can have the largest

impact on improving the quality of life for all Kane residents – particularly the most vulnerable

residents of our community – by reducing preventable sickness and death”(CHIP 2011). The

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CHIP also described the process and outcomes of their listed priorities in order to meet the

second mandate of IDPH. They perform this task by using the National Prevention Strategy.

With this strategy Kane County was able to plan and assess their community Themes and

Strengths and Public Health System Priorities.

After reading the Kane County’s needs assessment, I have come to a conclusion that this

assessment links best with Timmrecks’s “10- Step Planning Model”. This needs assessment

relates to the Timmreck’s three core functions, assessment, policy development, and assurance.

In addition, to the three core measures it also correlates with steps two and four from the model.

Step two is known as the Assessment, organization, resources and review of regulations. CHIP

2011 looks into the internal and external assessments by affiliating the local hospital, United

Way and the INC Board. Step four in Timmreck’s Model is the Needs Assessment. In this step

Timmreck focuses on the process of identifying, completing, and evaluating the needs

assessment. Kane County completes this step by holding focus groups and incorporating

Northern Illinois University Public Opinion Laboratory. Once they compiled their needed data,

Kane County evaluated it in order to come up with their major health priorities.

Overall, the Kane County CHIP needs assessment seems to be much more detailed and in

depth, compared to the DeKalb County IPLAN. The Kane County community health needs

assessment has more data within the CHIP than DeKalb County does. The DeKalb County

IPLAN has a simple layout and makes it easy to find each section. They also focused only on

their three priorities whereas; Kane County looked into other factors that affect the county as

well. Some factors that they took into consideration were socioeconomic status, access to

healthcare, as well as their surrounding environments. Being able to incorporate these factors

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into their major health priorities will allow them to develop programs in order to have a healthier

county. I believe that both counties did a nice job laying out their IPLAN’s but it all depends on

who has the supporting data, and Kane County did a much better job providing this information.

This makes the Kane County CHIP more reliable and much more evidence based.

The Kane County Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) is set to better Kane

residents and help improve quality of life. The plan can be used by health professionals, the

government, in educational settings, communities, social services, faith- based organizations and

other identifying agencies where resources are used to improve one’s quality of life in Kane

County (CHIP, 2011-2016). The plan includes four priorities and six health threats focusing on

the causes contributing to the health issues people face every day. CHIP is not only focusing on

access to medical care or behaviors but also on social, economic and environments that

contribute to good health. Kane County believe the need to address these issues may result in

“successful” population health. The four priorities are Support Health Behaviors that Promote

Well-Being and Prevent Disease Priority, Increase Access to High Quality, Holistic Preventive

and Treatment Services Across the Health Care System Priority, Support and Create Health

Promoting Neighborhoods, Towns and Cities Priority, and Promote Social, Economic, and

Educational Environments that Optimize Health. The six health threats that go along with this

are obesity, chronic disease, infant mortality, childhood lead poisoning, communicable disease,

and poor social and emotional wellness.

According to Kane County a few of the goals for the first priority Support Health

Behaviors that Promote Well-Being and Prevent Disease Priority, includes the reduction of

tobacco use and exposure to environmental tobacco smoke which has an effect on chronic

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disease. People that don’t smoke are being exposed to hazardous tobacco smoke and needs to be

protected by policies. Also, by increasing access and consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables

it can help lower obesity rates, especially in low- income areas where fresh fruit and veggies may

not be available. Coordinate the effective communication of tailored, accurate and actionable

health information to Kane County residents across the lifespan, and create environments that

prevent excessive consumption of alcohol. The second priority Increase Access to High Quality,

Holistic Preventive and Treatment Services across the Health Care System, includes increasing

the proportion of residents of all ages that have regular, ongoing sources of medical and dental

care as well as increasing the proportion of residents of all ages who receive appropriate,

evidence- based clinical preventive services. Also, it focuses culturally appropriate outreach and

engagement efforts to eliminate racial disparities in health outcomes, especially in infant

mortality. It enhances systems to support the prevention, early identification and treatment of

communicable diseases in the community. Lastly, it enhances systems to support the prevention,

early identification and evidence-based treatment of mental health conditions. Priority three

Support & Create Health Promoting Neighborhoods, Towns & Cities goals includes Increase the

availability and variety of high quality, safe and affordable housing and compact, mixed use

developments by Instituting “complete streets” types of policies to ensure that roadways are

designed and operated with all users in mind - including bicyclists, public transportation vehicles

and riders, and pedestrians of all ages and abilities. Assure access to safe playgrounds, parks,

trails and open space. Assure access to safe food and clean and safe water and air. The fourth

priority is to Promote Social, Economic and Educational Environments that Optimize Health by

increasing the proportion of children who have high quality early developmental support,

especially in child care and education and by increasing the proportion of Kane County young

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people that complete high school education as well as increasing the job skills and readiness of

Kane County residents that is unemployed (CHIP 2011-2016).

The Kane county Community health improvement plan wants to ensure that the

accessibility, availability, and acceptability of the plan is able to reach each individual of the

county wanting to find any information or data relevant to Kane County.

The overall accessibility of the Kane county IPLAN is easy to find and access all the

health and data you are wishing to find as the County’s IPLAN is found online on the Kane

County health department's website which is www.kanehealth.com. For being an individual with

no knowledge of IPLANs, or minimal health and data knowledge finding the website and the

actual IPLAN was rather difficult as they call it the Community Health Improvement

Plan(CHIP) rather than IPLAN which led to confusion when searching for their IPLAN. Once

we found their IPLAN all the data and information we needed was found on a downloadable pdf

file on their main page. Included on that page was multiple live links with other useful data sets,

executive summaries about other assessments the kane county health department has done

previously, as well as having a website that has all their assessments and data sets together in

what seemed to be a one drive or even something similar to dropbox.

The Availability of the IPLAN is available to any individual with the basic technological

requirements in today’s society. Majority of individuals have smart phones, computers, and the

access to emails through one of the many apps they have on their phone so that makes accessing

the available information provided online from Kane County Health Department in regards to

their IPLAN and other health related issues easy as well. For those who don’t have access to

smartphones or a computer they can still access the information available in the IPLAN by

calling or by even physically stopping in to the Health department to speak to a representative or

even ask to have a physical hard copy of the information you are requesting or the entire IPLAN.

Once you have the IPLAN document the availability to any health issues or data is easily

available and is easy to find as the document is easy to read and follow as well as find any data

or information you are looking for within the document.

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The Kane County IPLAN follows all the required information and regulations from the

Illinois Department of Public Health when completing their community assessments every five

years. This helps make the County’s IPLAN Acceptable for not only the county itself but for the

individuals living there as well. Within the County IPLAN they have included an Executive

summary detailing the document briefly and what all goes into it and what you may find while

reading over the material. The document also has a table of contents with appendix’s listed at the

end with data sets, tables, and graphs charting data and comparing information from previous

years. The items throughout the document are easy to follow and seem to be in logical order and

won’t confuse the reader as they read over the material and analyze the data sets.

When comparing the Kane County IPLAN to the Dekalb County IPLAN I found that

when searching for the IPLAN for either county Dekalb County’s was easier to find as all i had

to do was google search the name or even just access the website dekalbcounty.gov/health/ and

under Administration tab it has its own link to the county’s IPLAN which may be a little more

difficult as I wouldnt think administration would category id class the IPLAN under. The Dekalb

County IPLAN I feel wasn’t as easy to read as the Kane county IPLAN but when it came to

content and the accessibility and availability of the information provided in either document they

are almost on the same level when it comes to quality and ease of access if you were an

individual with minimal to no knowledge about healthcare and IPLANs. One thing about the

Dekalb County IPLAN that is different than Kane County’s IPLAN is that Dekalb County’s

IPLAN has a much larger table of contents and information included into their IPLAN than Kane

County which I feel can either be a good or bad thing when it comes to analyzing data but may

confuse the reader as they might feel overwhelmed by all the data and information included

within the report.

According to AFMC Primer on Population Health, “Reliability refers to dependability or

consistency” while Validity “does the test measure what we are intending to measure?” So

basically, Reliability is based on how consistent and dependable either a plan or an individual

can be. And Validity is how valid a plan or a measurement we intend on measuring are. AFMC

Primer on Population Health also states that, “there is no single approach to measuring validity:

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the approach varies according to the purpose of the measurement and the sources of

measurement error you wish to detect. In medicine, the commonest way to assess validity is to

compare the measurement with a more extensive clinical or pathological examination of the

patient. This is called criterion validation, because it compares the measurement to a full work-

up that is considered a "gold standard" criterion. This is used where the measurement offers a

brief and simple way to assess the patient’s condition, and our question is: How well does this

simple method predict the results of a full and detailed (and also expensive, perhaps invasive)

examination?

On this project, one of the criteria I would be discussing about is Reliability and Validity

of Data Set Information which is already stated above, definitions, and the use of this criteria. In

regards to Kane County IPLAN, on page 12 of Kane County 2012-2016 Community Health

Improvement Plan, it states that they are required to conduct a “community health assessments

every 3-5years”. So basically, there mandated data set to be done every two years.

The data set include to “adopt an implementation strategy”, implement a program to help

promote and protect the health of the public and community by developing the quality of al

health department throughout the United States and national public health departments. So

therefore, the data set does support the goal and objectives stated.

The key objective according to Kane County 2012-2016 Community Health

Improvement IPLAN, “is to integrate for Health Impact Assessment as part of projects, plans,

and policies at the county and municipal level.” And also, the data sets provided is set to be used

every two years but the one used presently is about four years old. Perhaps, this is between four

years season for a reason. Plans and projects for a long term was mapped out to avoid being

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assessed every two years but instead include updates when needed. In DeKalb County’s IPLAN,

they seem to be focusing on the broader view of improving Public Health County wide. DeKalb

purpose of IPLAN states that, “it’s a planning process that is based on the Assessment Protocol

for Excellent in Public Health (APEXPH)” by which they would developing public health

organizations worldwide.

According to the DeKalb County Health Department: Illinois Project for Local

Assessments of Needs (IPLAN), DeKalb County provide the following tasks, “commitment to

improving the health of health county, willingness to maintain a county-wide perspective,

willingness to provide the required time, and ability to represent an important perspective,

organization, or sector of the county” all this are their primary objective to improving Public

Health but specifically “identify and prioritize health problems in accordance with the IPLAN

process, present their perspective in discussions, balancing those views with a county-wide

perspective, and finally participate in the development and recommendation of a health plan for

the county”.

Three reasons why I think DeKalb county’s is better, first, they work towards improving

Public Health worldwide, potential priorities are visible, and lastly, IPLAN is well arranged and

easy to access to grab on the important information’s needed. Easy accessibility, valid, and

reliable to the community to follow along with. This is what I call “transparency” by which the

entire county has an idea what is going on within.

Unfortunately, the data set are set at exactly at the range of four years difference. Their

data is reliable in the sense that it’s very dependable, more resourceful, and fully detailed in their

IPLAN in year 2002. As we know that validity, is questioning if the test measure Access to

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Health Care (Access to specialty care), Maternal and Child Health (Infant mortality), Chronic

Disease (Cardiovascular diseases), Access to Mental Health Services, and Public Health

Maintenance of Effort”, according to Kane County 2006 Community Health Improvement

IPLAN. With statement it clearly states to what measure they are planning to reach and

implement healthy food productions. Not only that but also redevelopment housing authority,

community gardens, sidewalks, and bike lanes.

Lastly, the most important reason why both reliability and validity is important in an

IPLAN is because reliability states the consistency of change and resources that could be

dependable for future reference while validity is knowing what to measure and question if you’re

measuring what is really needed to be measured. Also the concept of transparency helps to keep

whole county as whole in the loop and follow with assessments.

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References

2000 GEN-GEO Conference. (Grantmakers Evaluation Network and Grantmakers for Effective

Organizations, 2000)

AFMC Primer on Population Health: The Association of Facilities of Medicine of Canada

http://phprimer.afmc.ca/Part2MethodsStudyingHealth/

Chapter6MethodsMeasuringHealth/Reliabilityandvalidityofhealthmeasures

Community Health Improvement Plan. (n.d.). Retrieved November 10, 2015, from

http://kanehealth.com/chip.htm

DeKalb County Health Department: Illinois Project for Local Assessments of Needs (IPLAN),

March 26 2013. http://dekalbcounty.org/health/administration/pdf/IPLANassess.pdf

IPLAN. (n.d.). Retrieved November 9, 2015, from http://dekalbcounty.org/health/admin

istration/IPLAN.html

Illinois Project for Local Assessment of Needs (IPLAN). (n.d.). Retrieved November 5, 2015,

from http://app.idph.state.il.us/

Kane County 2012-2016 Community Health Improvement IPLAN.

http://kanehealth.com/PDFs/CHIP/CHIP-short.pdf

Kane County Community Needs Assessment and Community Health Plan, 2006

http://kanehealth.com/PDFs/Planning/IPLAN/The2006IPLAN.pdf

Kane County Population Estimates, Feb. 2007 by IPLAN Databook 2006/Charts

http://kanehealth.com/PDFs/Planning/IPLAN/IPLANDatabook2006.pdf

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