Research

The needs assessments carried out by the Council are still the definitive documents cited by outside organizations studying Orange County health care, most recently in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Community Snapshot Project - Capturing Health System Change.

The Council helped to set up a Research Collaborative, which is now staffed by the Country Health Care Agency and has developed "rules of engagement" with researchers, both university-based and private sector independents. The Council seeks to develop standards and common terms so that health research undertaken by Collaborative members will be compatible, replicable and generalizable, with the aim of comparing "apples with apples" 

In developing its Action Plan the council contracted with researchers from two universities through The Collaborative, published a compilation of health research and hospital public benefit plans, and participated together with the Healthcare Association of Southern California (HASC), CalOPTIMA, the County Health Care Agency and many of the Council's member organizations, in developing a county-wide health needs assessment, health mapping and health care monitoring systems.

The Council continues to serve on the steering committee of the Orange County Health Needs Assessment.

Recently at an all-day retreat sponsored by Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, the entire Board of Directors of the Health Care Council participated in a pivotal Strategic Planning session. The outcome included a significant one-word change to the Mission Statement, from "Research" to "Analysis" which more accurately describes the new direction of the Council's efforts.

Henceforth, the Council plans to analyze health research and legislation, and to attempt to disseminate the results of these analyses to the public and the professions as we all try to find our way through the bewildering, perplexing, complex flux of changes and political detours which continue to affect providers and consumers of American health care.