Health care index shows troubling situation for Merced County

Merced County is one of the top places in the nation in terms of a dire need for health care, according to the Community Need Index.

The CNI was created by Catholic Healthcare West and Thomson Reuters. Catholic Healthcare West is the owner of Mercy Medical Center. Thomson Reuters is an international multimedia news agency catering to financial, legal, and healthcare markets, among others, according to its website.

The CNI was developed in 2005, and it recently became available online for health care and community organizations to better allocate resources to areas that have a greater need.

The tool identifies the level of community need by ZIP code across the country. The highest CNI score is a 5, while the lowest is a 1. Overall, Merced County scored a 4.8.

Rich Roth, Catholic Healthcare West senior director of innovation, said Merced County is one of the most needy in the United States. Roth, who was involved in the creation of the CNI, said the county is among the top 10 such places in the nation. "Merced is an area of extreme need," he said.

Roth said one of the goals of the CNI is to increase the level of prevention.

"By increasing the level of prevention, you both reduce the cost of care, which is an important goal, but you also really provide care in the right place at the right time," he said.

The tool also allows for community organizations to create partnerships to focus their efforts where they're the most needed, he said.

Janice Wilkerson, Mercy's director of Mission Integration, said the CNI is a useful tool in which Catholic Healthcare West has invested. Mercy has been using the tool for about three years.

"We can use it in our county to identify those communities with the highest need," she said. "We do have some areas that have a (score of) 5, which is the highest."

The ZIP codes within the county that scored a 5 include 95322, which corresponds to Gustine; 95334, Livingston; 95388, Winton; and 93620, Dos Palos.

Wilkerson said Planada is also a community with a strong need.

The data from the CNI have been helpful for hospital officials, she said. For example, when agencies submit proposals for the hospital's grant program, they are able to see how those agencies reach out to the areas that are most in need of resources.

Wilkerson said agencies that have received grants from the hospital don't just focus in one area. They do outreach throughout the county.

If more agencies are able to work together to address the needs of certain communities, they will be able to achieve more than if they were to work individually, she said.

Further Catholic Healthcare West research indicates that residents who live in communities that have high CNI scores are twice as likely to be hospitalized for conditions such as asthma, pneumonia, or congestive heart failure, compared with residents who live in communities with low CNI scores.

Roth said Catholic Healthcare West hospitals have been using the CNI to reduce and prevent those kinds of hospitalizations. He said hospitals were able to invest close to $6 million for preventive services that reached out to about 9,000 patients.

That resulted in an 86 percent reduction in hospital admissions for those patients.

Reporter Yesenia Amaro can be reached at yamaro@mercedsun-star.com or (209)388-6507.