Taking action to meet our community’s health needs
In 2022 Watsonville Community Hospital returned to its roots as a non-profit hospital, following more than 20 years of for-profit ownership. We are now a community-owned, district hospital governed by the Pajaro Valley Health Care District, whose geographic boundaries span from Aptos in the north to Las Lomas in the south.
As a non-profit, we have a clear focus on serving the community of the Pajaro Valley, meeting its healthcare needs, and working to improve health equity and wellness for all. One of the first steps is gaining a clear understanding of the health needs of our community. To that end, we have conducted a Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA). This assessment was completed in early December 2023 and formally adopted by the Pajaro Valley Health Care District Hospital Corporation board on December 27, 2023.
The CHNA is a data-driven approach to determining the health status, behaviors, and needs of residents of the Pajaro Valley. Following the completion of our CHNA, a focus group session was conducted to evaluate the data, brainstorm ways we can work to creatively tackle the needs revealed in the report, and prioritize the significant health needs that can reasonably be addressed in a 3-year plan, as well as those we cannot address, given our areas of expertise and current resources available. From that, we built an implementation plan. We will continually evaluate this plan, and conduct a CHNA every three years to track how we are doing and stay informed about our community’s changing health needs. Click on the buttons below to view the report and the implementation plan. We welcome public comments. If you would like to share your thoughts or request a paper copy of the CHNA 2023 Report and/or Implementation Strategy, please email [email protected].
Our CHNA was conducted by Professional Research Consultants, Inc. (PRC) for Watsonville Community Hospital. PRC brings nearly 40 years of experience conducting research and providing analytics tools to thousands of healthcare organizations across the country to help support improved health outcomes.