Children's Hospital Colorado
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Addressing Community Health Needs

At Children's Hospital Colorado, we know that every child's well-being is deeply connected to the health and wellness of the community. We understand that we can't provide complete care for our children if we don't also understand and care for our local neighborhoods; nor can we support thriving kids without nurturing thriving communities.

This is why we work to assess, quantify, validate and prioritize the needs of families and children in our area, then develop responsive plans, programming and interventions designed to address those needs and benefit our communities. Find a complete list of our needs assessments, implementation strategies and community benefit activities below.

Understanding community needs

Here, we know that children have many influences in their lives and that every adult who comes into contact with a child has a unique perspective on what that child needs to thrive. To help us understand how to best serve these kids, every three years we get to work identifying the needs and priorities of our surrounding communities. This includes collecting public health and demographic data, interviewing public health experts and healthcare providers, conducting focus groups with caregivers, and gathering input from hundreds of parents and caregivers through online surveys.

Our work culminates in a report called a Community Health Needs Assessment, or CHNA. Thanks to these assessments, we have better insight into the challenges facing children in our area.

Community Health Needs Assessments

We're pleased to share our latest assessments, where we identify child health priorities and a framework in which to guide our work.

* A joint assessment of Children’s Hospital Colorado licensed hospital facilities at the Anschutz Medical Campus and North and South Campuses.

Taking action

The CHNA focuses on identifying and quantifying community health needs. It's followed by a plan for addressing those needs.

Community Health Implementation Strategies

In response to findings from Community Health Needs Assessments, we then develop Community Health Implementation Strategies to define how we, in partnership with community organizations, schools, government agencies and others, will address these child health needs. Read more about our strategies in the reports below:

Implementation Strategies Annual Evaluation Reports

Your feedback

Children's Colorado looks forward to hearing from community members on how to expand, evolve and adapt our work over the next three-year period as we implement plans to address these community-prioritized needs. We welcome your continued feedback. To submit comments, questions and suggestions or to request paper copies of these reports, please email CommunityBenefit@childrenscolorado.org.

Reinvesting in our communities

As a nonprofit pediatric hospital, our bottom line is kids. This means that any positive hospital revenue is reinvested into the health and well-being of children. We share these activities annually in a document called a Community Benefit Report.

Annual Community Benefit Investment

Putting these activities into numbers isn't easy. However, in 2023, Children's Colorado reported more than $459 million in community benefit activities — that is, activities we conducted as a hospital that went beyond caring for patients and made an impact on our community at large. This includes everything from dental screening and immunization clinics for kids, to community health education and car seat education for parents.

Colorado Hospital Community Benefit Accountability (HCBA) Reports

Past HCBA reports:

Share your perspective at a community event

We also host events and opportunities for community members to share their experiences and provide input about child health needs. Please bookmark this web page and check back frequently to learn about upcoming conversations and community health events.