Q&A: How Generative AI is Transforming Community Health Assessments

Did you miss Jonathan Giuffrida’s plenary session at NACCHO 360? Here’s a look at the key takeaways on how Metopio is using AI to enhance community health assessments. 

Q: How has generative AI, like ChatGPT, impacted Metopio’s work?

A: Since the launch of ChatGPT, generative AI has created numerous opportunities for innovation across industries, including public health. At Metopio, we’ve harnessed AI to significantly enhance the CHA process, making it more efficient and effective. This includes automating data analysis, creating visualizations, and generating accessible captions, all of which save time and improve accuracy. 

Q: Can you give an example of how AI has been applied in a real-world CHA?

A: Certainly! Let’s look at Kane County, Illinois. They came to us with a new team and staffing constraints, needing to conduct a CHA in collaboration with five other hospitals. Using AI, we developed a workflow that reduced the time needed to complete the CHA by over 80%. We automated the creation of maps, charts, and tables, preloaded indicators from a curated data library, and generated captions with AI to make the data accessible to all community members through their Kane County Atlas.  

Q: What does the process of using AI for a CHA look like?

A: We begin by leveraging best practices from CHAs across the country rather than starting from scratch. We preload indicators from high-quality data sources and use automation to produce hundreds of visualizations. AI helps by generating captions for these visualizations, which describe the data and highlight disparities in an accessible manner at a grade-school reading level. This drastically cuts down the time and effort required for data visualization and captioning, which can be the most time-consuming part of an assessment. 

Q: How does AI handle qualitative data in the CHA process?

A: In several ways, AI can read through interview and focus group transcripts to extract relevant themes, quotes, and sentiments. This allows us to quickly summarize key findings and match them with quantitative data, streamlining the analysis and reporting process. The team conducting the assessment still looks through the quotes and summaries to understand what their community is saying, but it’s much faster to start with the key findings than to read every transcript start-to-finish. 

Q: How does AI support the development of the Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP)?

A: Primarily, by recommending evidence-based programs and drafting logic models based on the CHA findings. It provides a structured way to integrate these recommendations into a living CHIP document that can be updated over time. This includes tracking progress and outcomes, which is essential for maintaining accountability and adapting to changing community needs. The final dashboard tracking the programs and progress can be shared publicly with the community and partners.  

Q: What are some innovative features of Metopio’s AI tools?

A: One standout feature is our AI chatbot, Juno, which allows community members to interact with health data using natural language queries. This chatbot can answer questions, compare data, and point you to maps and charts visualizing its answers, making data more accessible to a broader audience. It is incredibly resilient to typos and the user doesn’t need to understand how the data is organized in order to ask for it.

Q: What are the future prospects for AI in community health assessments?

A: The future of AI in community health assessments looks promising. With continuous advancements in AI technology, we anticipate even more capabilities to enhance efficiency, accuracy, and accessibility. At Metopio, we are committed to iterating on our tools and incorporating feedback to drive ongoing improvements in public health data analysis and community engagement. 

Q: How can health departments benefit from adopting AI tools like those developed by Metopio?

A: Health departments can benefit significantly from adopting AI tools by reducing the time and resources required for CHAs and CHIPs, improving the quality and accessibility of data, and enabling more effective community engagement. AI tools help health departments focus on strategic initiatives and meaningful interactions with their communities, ultimately leading to better health outcomes. 

About Metopio

Jonathan Giuffrida, Chief Technology Officer at Metopio, leads the development of cutting-edge AI and technology solutions that help clients gain deeper insights into their communities. With a strong background in technology, data science, and healthcare policy, Jonathan has dedicated his career to creating tools that empower professionals to make data-driven decisions, improving health outcomes in diverse populations. 

Metopio is committed to building user-friendly data analytics tools for local health departments, enabling them to understand, visualize, and share critical community data. Recently, we’ve focused on using AI to streamline the Community Health Assessment (CHA) process, a key aspect of public health. 

For more insights into how AI is transforming community health assessments and to explore our tools, contact us for a customized demonstration.