The Archway Partnership works within a county to bring together local leaders who prioritize needs and identify projects that benefit the community. Projects are not decided by the university but determined by members of a community-based Executive Committee with assistance from a fulltime UGA faculty member who serves as facilitator of the process, known as the Archway Professional. Archway then acts as a bridge between communities and the students and faculty at UGA to work on selected projects.

The Archway Partnership empowers communities to address critical community and economic development needs, including issues related to education, workforce development, leadership, health and welfare, overall quality of life, and more.

Community health and supporting the local Taylor Regional Hospital have been top priorities for the Pulaski County Archway Partnership. “Archway is considered a valuable and responsive partner to Taylor Regional Hospital through communication to our community, among our board as well as government officials highlighting the very important and ongoing work at Taylor Regional Hospital,” said Taylor CEO Jon Green.

When the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, one of the requirements for hospitals was to complete “conduct a community health needs assessment (CHNA) and adopt an implementation strategy at least once every three years.

In July 2015, Pulaski County and the Archway Partnership collaborated with the College of Public Health to assist Taylor Regional Hospital in completing their CHNA. The result was a set of findings and lessons for the hospital and community stakeholders involved in the process.

“Archway is considered a valuable and responsive partner to Taylor Regional Hospital through communication to our community, among our board as well as government officials highlighting the very important and ongoing work at Taylor Regional Hospital,”

-Taylor CEO Jon Green.

The Process

Faculty members from the departments of Health Promotion and Behavior and Health Policy and Management; graduate students from the College of Public Health; and the Archway Partnership faculty member from Pulaski County, teamed up to develop an effective community-engaged strategy and to conduct the assessment.

CPH faculty and students collected data from secondary sources, surveyed community members and conducted focus groups. During this time, the Archway Professional, hospital leadership and CPH faculty remained in constant contact to ensure stakeholder engagement. The CHNA process in Pulaski County led to experiential learning opportunities for students and resulted in several peer reviewed publications. This collaboration exemplifies the service mission of the university and represents the best type of partnership, one that benefits all involved.

330 community members were surveyed. Responses indicated greater access to care (64.4%) and urgent care (44.8%) were top priorities. Nearly 24% of respondents wrote in “Urgent Care” in an open-ended question asking about additional services that could be provided.

“Taylor Express Care relieves pressure on costly emergency care by providing an alternative. Taylor Emergency Room usage, which had consistently remained above 10,000 patients per year has declined by nearly 10% since the clinic opened.”

Impact

In February of 2016, UGA faculty and students presented these findings to hospital leadership and local steering committee members. As a result, the hospital opened Taylor Express Care urgent care center in June. The clinic provides walk-in services and extended hours as an alternative to the emergency room. Previously, many of these patients left the county for urgent care, leading to out-of-county follow up or specialty care. Today, these patients stay in Pulaski County and help ensure the hospital remains viable.

Taylor Express Care relieves pressure on costly emergency care by providing an alternative. Taylor Emergency Room usage, which had consistently remained above 10,000 patients per year has declined by nearly 10% since the clinic opened.

Dr. Skip McDannald, Jr., hospital CEO at the time, was enthusiastic about what UGA’s support through the Archway Partnership meant for a community that was bucking the trend and expanding services.

“We’d be in a mess without them,” McDannald said. “We could never muster the resources ourselves.”

Current Taylor CEO Green has continued the close relationship with Archway and sees it as a key partner for the hospital. “Archway has allowed us to perform community needs assessments to address the services that our community needs, although healthcare changes constantly on many fronts our patrons are where our focus needs to be in the provision of services for the community in Hawkinsville and surrounding contingent areas. The ability to lean on Archway for this allows us to redirect these funds for direct patient care and positively impact patient care and experience.”

The results from the CHNA and subsequent development of the urgent care location has also been helpful during the Covid-19 pandemic. “Taylor Express Care during and continuing through the pandemic has allowed immediate healthcare to those that are experiencing symptoms, providing after hour call lines that are routed from the urgent care to the ER if needed,” said Green. “We also use this as a vehicle for testing and immediate resulting which is crucial in the provision of care to these patients. This is another example of how dynamic and extremely crucial rural medicine is to our community.”

Collaboration

The results of the CHNA project demonstrate the value of sustained relationships in community-university partnerships. Archway and other UGA resources were able to serve the community and conduct the CHNA with a conservative estimated value of $55,000.

Funds for the Archway Partnership are a combination of local contributions and university resources ensuring that everyone has skin in the game. The identification of a passionate and skilled Health Steering Committee and facilitation by trained UGA faculty helped generate a high participation rate in surveys and focus groups.

Communities benefit overall by determining their own priorities, allowing for customization of work plans responsive to community needs. This flexibility enabled Pulaski County to identify and utilize university resources for the community health needs assessment. Through the delivery of higher education resources, UGA provides high-quality, tangible work for local communities as part of the community work plan.

The Archway Partnership also fosters a spirit of community collaboration, building an environment for continued progress over the long-term. Through years of collaboration and partnership – not to mention the success of projects like the CHNA, the Archway Partnership program builds community capacity to address challenges like the hospital’s assessment and needs for additional services. This partnership gives local leaders the tools and resources they need to work together to tackle major local issues and common goals.