Carroll County is continuing to make year-to-year improvements in its standing with other Georgia counties.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute recently released its annual County Health Rankings report. The rankings provide an easy-to-use snapshot to compare the health of nearly every county in the nation based on an index that takes into account 30 factors that impact health, including education, transportation, housing, violent crime, jobs, tobacco use, diet and exercise and more.
Each county is ranked on two measures: health outcomes, which includes such factors as premature death and quality of life issues like poor mental and physical health days; and health factors, which include health behaviors such as adult tobacco use, physical inactivity and teen births, as well as clinical care issues, social and economic factors and the physical environment.
Carroll County ranked 56th among Georgia’s 159 counties for its health outcomes and 52nd for health factors. The rankings indicate an improvement over last year’s placement of 58th for health outcomes and 54th for health factors.
Tanner Health System has been working to impact the region’s score through trying to mitigate the state’s severe physician and nursing shortages, improving clinical quality and, through the Get Healthy, Live Well initiative, improving community wellness.
“Our state and our region have a lot of challenges right now in terms of health care,” said Loy Howard, president and CEO of Tanner Health System. “Healthcare providers not only have an obligation to treat the sick, but to prevent disease in the first place. That’s why efforts like Get Healthy, Live Well are so important — they give us that tool to better help us reach out and impact things like obesity and tobacco use that lead to problems like diabetes, heart disease and cancer. It’s also why expanding access to care is so important, so we’re able to catch health problems in the early stages when treatment can be most effective.”
The rankings show big improvements in the areas of health behaviors, which include such factors as adult smoking, adult obesity, physical inactivity and access to healthy food. In 2014, Carroll County ranked 70th; this year, the county ranks 63rd. Part of that boost is owed to the county’s gains in the percentage of residents who have access to locations for physical activity, which grew from 40 percent to 61 percent.
“Community initiatives, such as the Carrollton GreenBelt and the county’s efforts to improve access to parks, are having a positive influence in impacting physical activity,” said Howard.
The county also improved in the area of preventable hospital stays, from 47th to 39th, which places it ahead of many of the best-performing counties in the nation. Preventable hospital stays include hospital admissions for diseases and conditions that could have been prevented with proper ambulatory care, which includes treatment in a clinic or medical practice.
“Preventing unnecessary admissions to the hospital has been an important focus for us from a clinical perspective,” said Howard. “Many of our primary care Tanner Medical Group practices are now certified as Patient-centered Medical Homes, which means that the patient care team has been organized around the patient, with resources designed to facilitate an approach to care that will allow the practice to provide a far more consistent and comprehensive level of service. For people who have chronic diseases or trouble managing their health conditions, this means they can get in to see a provider when they need to and that they have other clinical staff following up with them to make sure they have what they need to control their condition.”
Howard also said that expanding Tanner Urgent Care services to Carrollton and Bremen, in addition to Villa Rica, has helped by giving people another option.
“Tanner Urgent Care provides convenient care on a walk-in basis, with evenings and weekends available,” said Howard. “That means if you have a chronic condition, you can come in and get problems addressed before it gets to the point that you need to be admitted into the hospital.”
Other counties in Tanner’s service area saw year-to-year gains as well. Haralson County slid from 123rd to 141st in health outcomes but improved from 97th to 91st for health factors, and Heard County improved from 84th to 52nd for health outcomes, but dropped one place to 92nd for health factors.
Through Get Healthy, Live Well’s 24 community-based task forces — consisting of more than 550 volunteers and 160 local, state and national partners — Tanner is working closely with an array of individuals and groups who have an interest in the community’s overall health, including school officials, restauranteurs, farmers, civic groups, faith-based institutions, chambers of commerce, business organizations, social service agencies, rural health clinics, childcare providers and more. The initiative is also offering a number of free programs to help people track their diets and exercise, quit using tobacco, prevent and manage diabetes and more.
The end message, said Howard, is that Carroll County continues to improve even as other counties also work to get healthier.
“Most counties want to be near the top of this index,” said Howard. “It’s not just about pride; a healthier region is more attractive to employers, and that’s an important factor as the country’s job market begins to turn around. Employers look at an area’s schools, they look at an area’s standard of living, and they look at the kinds of clinical services that are available. So it’s important that we’re holding our own in many places and making improvements in many more.”
More information about the Get Healthy, Live Well initiative is available at www.GetHealthyLiveWell.org. More information about Tanner is available online at www.tanner.org.