How a Regional Collaborative Is Rewriting the Rules for Community Health in North Carolina
About the Customer
The Central Carolina Community Collaborative is a multi-county, multi-sector initiative in North Carolina that includes:
6 health systems (including Atrium Health and Novant Health)
10 local health departments
4 United Way agencies
Multiple technical and academic partners (e.g., UNC Charlotte, UNC Institute for Public Health)
Together, these partners are working across jurisdictional lines to align strategy, improve efficiency, and drive measurable community health outcomes.
The Challenge
Before the Collaborative formed, each organization was conducting its own Community Health Assessment (CHA) or Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) — often duplicating efforts, using inconsistent data, and producing reports in siloed formats. This led to:
Confusion in the community about who was doing what
Burnout among staff due to overlapping work
Lost opportunities to leverage shared data and collective action
Barriers to engagement, especially for smaller, resource-limited counties
Difficulty aligning hospital and public health priorities across regions
As Kristen Soni of Atrium Health put it: “If we could find a way to work together during a global pandemic, we knew could work together on this.”
The Solution
The Collaborative partnered with Metopio to establish a shared data infrastructure and report framework that would power both regional alignment and local flexibility.
With Metopio, they were able to:
Standardize data inputs and reporting across 20+ organizations
Maintain local control by allowing each partner to add custom questions and data
Build trust and shared understanding with a single source of truth
Level the playing field so every county, regardless of resources, had access to high-quality insights
Automate manual tasks so staff could focus on community relationships and implementation
Metopio’s Impact
Faster, more efficient CHNA/CHA cycles: Partners used Metopio’s shared platform to reduce duplicative work, speed up analysis, and streamline the report-writing process.
Data equity across counties: As Erin Shoe from Cabarrus Health Alliance noted, Metopio ensured that even the most resource-limited counties had the same high-quality data access as larger systems.
Improved community engagement: The shared platform allowed all partners to “speak the same language” in conversations with residents, strengthening trust and participation.
Customizability without complexity: Each organization could build off a shared baseline while tailoring reports to reflect local priorities, needs, and voices.
Sustainable collaboration model: What started as a post-COVID conversation turned into one of the country’s largest regional community health collaboratives — and it’s only growing.
“We didn’t set out to be one of the largest collaboratives in the country,” said Soni.
“We just started with a conversation.”
What FMOLHS Says About Metopio
““The more we can share the same language and same data, the better use of our community members’ time when we approach them. Collaboration allows us to actually serve more effectively.” ”
Is your organization ready to start collaborating to improve community health?