How Milwaukee Unified Its CHNA Process to Drive Real Health Impact
About the Customer
The Milwaukee Health Care Partnership (MHCP) is a nationally recognized public-private consortium dedicated to improving health outcomes and advancing equity in Milwaukee County. The partnership brings together the region’s four major health systems, plus public health departments, federally qualified health centers, and academic and community-based partners to align efforts around a shared mission and strategic community investment.
The Challenge
Milwaukee’s public health and healthcare sectors were facing a common, but complex, challenge: fragmented data, redundant assessments, and misaligned efforts. Without a single, unified source of truth, hospitals, local health departments, and community organizations were duplicating work, delaying action, and struggling to engage stakeholders across sectors. Traditional CHNA (Community Health Needs Assessment) cycles were static, resource-intensive, and disconnected from real-time decision-making.
The Solution
By partnering with Metopio, MHCP built Health Compass Milwaukee, a dynamic, publicly accessible data platform designed to centralize and contextualize community health information. This platform integrates structured and unstructured data from clinical, community, and surveillance sources — enabling all partners to access disaggregated, real-time insights down to the census tract level.
With Metopio’s automation tools, MHCP replaced outdated phone surveys and PDF reports with interactive dashboards, shared CHNA infrastructure, and custom data profiles on upstream drivers like housing, mental health, and youth health. This collaborative ecosystem not only streamlines CHNA and CHIP (Community Health Improvement Plan) cycles, it also accelerates alignment, transparency, and community-focused planning.
Metopio’s Impact
Faster, smarter CHNA cycles: What once took months of duplicated effort now takes weeks, thanks to shared, AI-enabled workflows and automated data updates.
Community-first decisions: Disaggregated ED visit data, housing indicators, and community survey results help partners identify and act on health needs with greater precision.
Sustained collaboration: Health Compass Milwaukee serves as both a strategic planning tool and a real-time resource for community-based organizations, public health officials, and grantmakers.
Funding alignment: The platform supports PHAB accreditation and IRS community benefit reporting while helping secure cross-sector investments through a shared, trusted source of truth.
MHCP’s model shows how hospitals and public health leaders can move beyond compliance and into mission-driven impact by leveraging accessible, community-informed data tools.
What MHCP Says About Metopio
““We wanted to move away from traditional, static CHNAs and create something digital, dynamic, and useful in real time. Metopio helped us bring that vision to life.””
Is your organization ready to start collaborating to improve community health?