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1. What is a Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP)?

A CHIP is a broad, action-oriented strategic plan to improve the health of the community, based on the needs identified by Community Health Assessments. The North Central CHIP is based on the 2021 Community Health Assessments conducted for our region. The CHIP will be implemented through 2025 and contains opportunities for partnership, leverage, and focus to enhance collective impact.

2. Why create a CHIP?

A CHIP is an established, evidence-based tool for responding to the results of a community assessment. It establishes a shared framework for partners from many sectors so that identified community needs can be addressed at the systemic level, harnessing collective resources and political will, and coordinating strategies between multi-sector organizations and communities.

3. How was the CHIP developed?

The first North Central Mass CHIP was created in 2015 when the CHNA9 convened over 100 community stakeholders to analyze the results of the Community Health Assessments produced by the area hospitals, contextualize the data, and identify areas of need as well as strategic plans for addressing each of those priority areas over the next five years.

The new CHIP (a 3-year plan informed by the 2021 Community Health Assessment data for the region) builds on the previous CHIP as well as input from a series of planning charettes that engaged over 160 residents across the region.

Relevant Documents

• Five CHIP Priority Areas (PDF)
• 13 CHIP Goals (PDF)

4. How is a CHIP used?

A CHIP is designed to be a living document, growing and changing with the needs of the community, rooted in data but engaging people where they live, work, learn, and play. It establishes measurable indicators, which provides both accountability and the ability to celebrate successes.

We encourage all organizations, agencies, institutions, and individuals to review the priority areas on the above pages and consider how they can participate in one or more of these initiatives. The CHIP is not intended to replace or duplicate the existing plans or missions of other area organizations, but rather to foster collaboration and sharing of resources in order to achieve these goals within a larger context.

Interested in helping out? Find out how on our We Need You page.