How Madison County Public Health Transformed Their CHA and CHIP Cycles (From Spreadsheet Burnout to Strategic Action)
About the Customer
Madison County Public Health serves a largely rural population of approximately 68,000 residents in central New York. The department operates with a lean team of 38 staff members overseeing 30 public health programs, working closely with two independent hospital systems, county agencies, and nonprofit partners including Cornell Cooperative Extension and the Office for the Aging.
The county's diverse population includes aging adults, agricultural workers (including migrant farmers and Amish families), a Native American community, and low-income residents who are often the most geographically isolated. Like many rural health departments, Madison County faces the challenge of delivering comprehensive public health services with limited staff capacity and resources.
The Challenge
By 2025, Madison County Public Health Deputy Director Erica Bird had been through two complete Community Health Assessment (CHA) and Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) cycles — and both left her team exhausted.
The 2019 cycle consumed six months of full-time work:
Manual collection and analysis of secondary data across dozens of spreadsheets
Eight focus groups requiring extensive qualitative analysis
Hand-written reports with no infrastructure for reuse
Complete team burnout by the time strategic planning began
The 2022 cycle wasn't much better. Despite receiving a state waiver for an abbreviated assessment during the pandemic, Erica and an intern still spent six months on secondary data analysis. The momentum was lost before the CHIP phase even started.
The fundamental problem wasn't just efficiency — it was sustainability. Madison County needed a way to:
Reduce the manual burden of data collection and visualization
Engage partners meaningfully in the process (not just rubber-stamp the methodology)
Create infrastructure that would support ongoing reporting, not just one-time assessments
Actually have time and energy for strategic planning and community engagement
Meet PHAB accreditation standards with confidence
As Erica prepared for the 2025 cycle, she knew something had to change.
““By 2022, we were still drowning in spreadsheets. We had lost momentum by the time we got to the CHIP phase. I wanted to approach the 2025 cycle completely differently.””
The Solution
Before the 2025 cycle officially began, Erica made three strategic decisions that would transform Madison County's approach:
1. Early Partnership and Co-Creation
In November 2024, Erica convened 10 agencies — before data collection even started. Together, they agreed on the shared purpose of the CHA, a realistic timeline, priority selection methodology, and what data infrastructure they needed to succeed.
2. Neutral Facilitation
Rather than running every meeting herself, Erica advocated for a neutral facilitator. This freed her to participate as a subject matter expert and contributor, rather than being solely responsible for logistics and coordination.
3. Sustainable Data Infrastructure
Erica pitched Metopio to her partners with a clear value proposition: if the health department and two hospital systems split the cost over five years, they'd have infrastructure supporting not just this cycle, but ongoing collaboration, real-time insights, and future assessments.
After a demo in December 2024, all three agencies agreed. Madison County onboarded with Metopio in February 2025.
How Metopio Changed the Process
Data Collection and Curation
Instead of spending months hunting down and cleaning federal and state data, Madison County exported Metopio's data dictionary to see which of the 60+ indicators they needed were already curated and updated. For local surveillance data and state-specific indicators, they uploaded approximately 60 additional datasets with support from their Metopio customer success manager.
Survey and Qualitative Data Integration
Madison County had already launched community surveys and focus groups before onboarding. Metopio's team worked with them to integrate survey results into the platform and process focus group transcripts. AI-generated themes gave Erica a starting point for qualitative analysis — which she validated and refined, rather than starting from a blank slate.
Visualization in Minutes, Not Days
With data in the platform, Erica could:
Toggle between visualization types (maps, trend lines, bar charts) with one click
View data at multiple geographic levels automatically
Use point layers to overlay community assets (like showing where a partner's "Monday Mile" walking program locations aligned with zip codes experiencing high obesity rates)
Generate AI captions for every visualization, which she could edit for tone and accuracy
Ensure every figure used Madison County's brand colors for consistency
From CHA to CHIP Without Losing Momentum
The CHIP module provided a library of evidence-based practices organized by topic area. A staff member pulled relevant examples based on Madison County's priority areas, and partners held just two brainstorming sessions to adapt national best practices to local context. The platform's logic model format aligned perfectly with New York State's "family of measures" requirements, and data tracking was built in from the start.
Key Takeaways
Six months of spreadsheet work reduced to weeks through curated data and automated visualizations
PHAB accreditation achieved with confidence using infrastructure that meets foundational standards
Partners brought to the table early to co-create methodology, not just approve it
Rural benchmark provides realistic comparisons, not misleading contrasts with urban centers
Sustainable five-year funding model shared across health department and hospital partners
Community data becomes a shared resource accessible to nonprofit partners and planning commissions
Longitudinal local data building reduces dependence on federal sources
““Metopio allows you to put data into themes. You can customize it in a lot of different ways. And the best part is that all of the visualizations are at your fingertips. You’re flipping through graphics, you get to pick the best insight that represents that data indicator. It saves so much time and energy.””
Is Your Team Ready to Move From Burnout to Breakthrough?
If you're staring down your next Community Health Assessment cycle and wondering how to do it differently, Metopio can help. From automated data curation to AI-powered insights to collaborative infrastructure that serves your whole community, we turn months of manual work into strategic advantage.
Resources:
NACCHO Webinar Recording: How Local Health Departments Are Driving Data Innovation
Blog Recap: From Drowning in Spreadsheets to Data-Driven Action