Cheyenne Regional Medical Center Receives Healthy Communities Achievement Award

Cheyenne, WY — The California-based Healthy Communities Institute (HCI) has presented the Wyoming Institute of Population Health with a Healthy Communities Achievement Award for its use of data to implement programs focused on improving the health of Laramie County residents. The Wyoming Institute of Population Health is a division of Cheyenne Regional Medical Center.

In 2011 Cheyenne Regional launched Wyoming Health Matters, a website that provides population data and information about the health and well-being of Laramie County residents.

“The Wyoming Health Matters website provides a singular, easy-to-use platform from which the community can obtain county-level data to use in developing community health improvement strategies,” said Phyllis Sherard, administrator and executive director of the Wyoming Institute of Population Health.

The Healthy Communities Achievement Awards recognize organizations that demonstrate exceptional leadership in using HCI products in meaningful, creative and innovative ways to advance health in their community. The Wyoming Health Matters website was created using HCI’s web-based platform, which focuses on community health analysis, population risk profiling and evidence-based health improvement programs.

“Receiving the Healthy Communities Achievement Award is an honor and is also validation that Cheyenne Regional Medical Center is focused on its mission—which is to improve both the health and the quality of life of our community,” said Dr. John Lucas, Cheyenne Regional’s CEO.

As part of its community benefit mission, Cheyenne Regional has supported the development of comprehensive community needs assessments and community health improvement planning in Laramie County since 1995. The most recent effort, the 2012 Healthier Laramie County Community Needs Assessment, was the result of nearly a year’s work by the members of Healthier Laramie County, a local partnership that includes more than 65 organizations and individuals.

“Through the needs assessment process, the partnership is able to determine the community’s most pressing health issues,” Sherard said. “Once those issues are identified, then the partnership works on developing health improvement plans that address the community’s consensus-determined priorities.”

“The health improvement plans present best-practice interventions, identify the partners with a role to play and determine the metrics that will be used to measure progress toward meeting Healthier Laramie County’s objectives,” Sherard said.

“The overall goal is to improve the health and well-being of Laramie County residents,” Sherard said. “But the work needs to be done in a systematic way so that we can show we are truly making a difference. The metrics posted on the Wyoming Health Matters website play a critical role in this process.”

About the Healthy Communities Institute

Headquartered in Berkeley, Calif., the Healthy Communities Institute provides the leading web-based platform to support health departments, community collaborations, hospitals and health systems with community health improvement strategies. The platform is in use in more than 35 states and is rapidly expanding. The company’s multi-disciplinary team is comprised of healthcare information technology veterans, academicians, health informatics experts, epidemiologists, urban planners and Internet developers. HCI began its work in 2002 in concert with the growth of the Healthy Cities Movement co-founded at the University of California, Berkeley.