Colorado faces challenges in preventing and controlling chronic disease according to the Colorado Chronic Disease State Plan issued by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) www.colorado.gov/pacific/sites/default/files/DC_Colorado-Chronic-Disease-Plan-2013-17.pdf last September.
The state is geographically diverse and faced with treating cancers, heart disease, unintentional injuries, chronic lower respiratory diseases, cerebrovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease, suicides, diabetes, chronic liver disease, cirrhosis, influenza, and pneumonia.
Many of the chronic issue problems are located in the eastern part of the state where residents in the sparsely populated counties are primarily sustained on grain and livestock production and as a result, the population tends to be poorer, less educated, and at greater risk for chronic diseases.
The Colorado State Plan proposes policy and environmental approaches to create healthy environments for all communities, build a comprehensive health system, link clinical services in communities, and provide linkages between health and dental care settings. There is need for more community resources and coordinated chronic disease surveillance to help the population become aware of the effects of chronic disease.
The plan points out that public health partners need a single source for comprehensive information about chronic disease data sources. It is also important to enable professionals in the public health field to have access to training and resources to help make data driven planning decisions using local level data.
State officials realize that it is important for the state to develop health IT. The state needs to develop and transfer electronic health information in order to collaborate with public health and use the tools available to control chronic disease. The tools include alerts, patient reminder systems, clinical decision supports, clinical quality measures, and patient registries.
State organizations working together on health issues related to controlling chronic disease includes the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment www.cdphe.state.co.us, Colorado Regional Extension Center www.corhio.org, Regional Care Collaborative Organizations www.colorado.gov, Center for Improving Value in Health Care www.civhc.org, Quality Health Network www.qjualityhealthnetwork.org, Community Health Network http://cchn.org, School Based Health Centers, www.cashhc.org, Rural and Primary Care Health Office www.colorado.gov, Health Team Works, www.healthteamworks.org, and the Physician Health Partnership www.phpmcs.com.
The report suggests that the State Leadership Team and the health system develop a referral and feedback mechanism among healthcare work sites, schools, and public health offices to enable providers to connect to community support outside of the clinical office.
The State also has a need for patient navigators and community health workers employed in urban, rural, and frontier communities to have access to training, public health data, and outcomes.
The state plans by August 2017 to provide education, statewide data, policies, trainings, prevention-specific articles, and other information on chronic disease prevention and control through a CDPHE email-based collaborative group and through COPrevent.org, an interactive blog of the CDPHE Prevention Services.