CHLA’s Prioritization Summit Tackles Community’s Most Urgent Health Needs

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles invited nearly 100 area leaders to its Youth Health and Wellness Prioritization Summit on Nov. 19, 2024, with the goal of determining which of the community’s health needs should be the pediatric hospital’s focus over the next few years.

Hosted by CHLA’s Office of Community Affairs at Inner-City Arts in downtown Los Angeles, the event explored the findings from the Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA), a survey the hospital conducts every three years to understand what community members view as their most pressing health issues. The assessment reaches out to parents, youth, health care providers, schools, social service agencies, and others. The results inform CHLA's eventual decision on where to apply its resources to produce the most benefit.

A highlight of the summit was the keynote panel on the state of children’s health in L.A. County. Moderated by Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Regional Health Officer Cristin Mondy, RN, MSN, MPH, the discussion featured leaders from multiple sectors:

• Alberto M. Carvalho, Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent
• Joshua Elizondo, L.A. County Youth Commissioner 
• Lara M. Khouri, MBA, MPH, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
• Alex Li, MD, L.A. Care Chief Health Equity Officer 
• Kiran Saluja, MPH, RDN, Public Health Foundation Enterprise Women, Infants and Children (PHFE WIC) Executive Director 
• Ilan Shapiro, MD, AltaMed Medical Director of Health and Wellness, Education

As Susan Gantan, MPH, Senior Program Manager in CHLA’s Office of Community Affairs, explains, the prioritization process is not new. It’s the next step once the data for the Community Health Needs Assessment is gathered. But this year’s summit amplified the process, as it brought together in one setting—the Rosenthal Theater at Inner-City Arts—the people and organizations CHLA had in previous assessments spoken to individually for their feedback on the data.

“We always had key stakeholder interviews, which included everybody from public health leaders to school leaders, but this gave us an opportunity to hear directly from those stakeholders,” Gantan says. “We were able to gather so many additional perspectives this year, so we expanded into creating a summit to have those perspectives shared in even more depth."

Gathering input

Because there aren’t endless resources available to tackle the health needs identified in the CHNA, the prioritization process is crucial.

“We want to understand what the community sees as their highest needs they want addressed,” Gantan says. That’s where the input of the local leaders is sought, received, sorted, and considered.

“We then look at what we do best, and where we can make the most impact on these needs.”

The summit attendees reviewed the data from the CHNA and were asked to select the top three health needs that CHLA could impact from among the many identified in the report.

We want to understand what the community sees as their highest needs they want addressed."

CHLA Senior Program Manager, Susan Gantan, MPH

Their responses will be organized with the help of an advisory group, the Children’s Health and Wellness Collaborative, and influence the direction CHLA takes as it makes a final determination on which health needs to prioritize. All the findings of the Community Health Needs Assessment will be published next summer as the hospital moves on to creating a formal plan for tackling these prioritized needs, called the Community Benefit Implementation Strategy.

The Prioritization Summit exceeded its stated goal, according to Gantan. In addition to offering a chance for the hospital to gain insights on the data in the Community Health Needs Assessment, the summit fostered relationships and conversations among the stakeholders that they intend to continue.

“This was an amazing experience to bring together leaders from all different sectors of L.A. County,” Gantan says. “It surpassed the initial purpose of the summit—which was really to gain understanding from stakeholders about what the needs are—to hopefully spark collaborations and action from different community leaders who haven't had a chance to speak to each other before.”

Gantan says her team wants to carry the momentum from the event forward, pushing further toward what each summit attendee would cite as the end goal: creating a healthier community for youth and families in Los Angeles County.

“We are ignited. This is our opportunity. We've had a chance to hear each other and hear our different perspectives. Now let's get to work.”