County Public Health receives performance award for 2019

“It is about consistency”

By Katherine Nettles

At a time when public health departments are sometimes at the center of scrutiny, Gunnison County has been recognized for having provided excellent and consistent care to its community members well in advance of the first mention of a global pandemic. The Colorado Department of Health Services (CDHS) presented Gunnison County Health and Human Services with a C-Stat Distinguished Performance Award on July 28 for its performance in 2019.

Ann-Marie Braga with CDHS congratulated Gunnison County Public Health director Joni Reynolds and her team via Zoom meeting for an exceptional year of service. “We want you all to know that director Reynolds and her team rank very high in the state for providing excellent care to people,” she said, noting, “It is about consistency.”

Gunnison County ended 2019 as the third-highest–ranked county in the state, having met monthly goals for all measures at a rate of 86.67 percent. This was the county’s third award for C-Stat. Other highlights listed were that the county maintained 100 percent performance on two measures, outperformed like-sized county peers in 12 measures and improved performance from 2018 to 2019 on six measures.

Reynolds gave credit to Gunnison County HHS manager Brad Wheaton, saying she felt the award belongs to him.

“He is there daily in the thick of it, and he is directly working with the team and the clients on a day-to-day basis … I totally see this as Brad’s work,” Reynolds said.

“This is a result of a lot of the hard work and heavy lifting that my team has done. I’m here as a representative for them,” said Wheaton. “I’ve been able to build a really strong team over the past three years and this is a direct reflection of the work that they do.”

Reynolds also noted the challenge of smaller, rural settings. “Sometimes in the smaller counties these awards have a lot of meaning not only because they represent some heartfelt work in the community, but because we often have a pass/fail. Some of our measures are so small that we can’t hit a 90 percent. We either hit 100 percent or we fail,” she said.

“We’ve been really lucky to have a structure here that promotes leadership and promotes the idea that we’re a team. And we approach this as a team,” said county commissioner Jonathan Houck. “We have such amazing capabilities in a small community. We have an incredibly dedicated staff and management that excels.”

Hinsdale County Health and Human Services, which Reynolds also directs, received a Distinguished Performance Award for 2019 for the first time. It maintained a 77.36 percent success rate in meeting monthly goals and maintained perfect performance for Timeliness of New Food Assistance Applications. Hinsdale ranked 16th in the state overall, out of 62 counties.