In order to improve the health of communities we need to have access to data that helps show where improvement is needed and where things are working. Managing by these metrics is key to successful community based programs. Huntington Memorial Hospital has become the first hospital in the country to partner with Healthy Communities Institute (HCI) in offering a one-stop, online source of publicly available data about community health. Healthy Pasadena (www.healthypasadena.org) is designed to help community members and policy makers learn about health-related issues and local resources. Check out this site to get ideas for your community. The information can be sorted by topic and by status [using a red/yellow/green meter]. Having data like this available is helpful to community initiatives in prioritizing their initiatives as well as in measuring the effectiveness of their interventions. Congratulations to Huntington Memorial Hospital for providing this service to their community.
