HJBR Jan/Feb 2022

46 JAN / FEB 2022 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF BATON ROUGE LDH CORNER plan, which outlines a series of ambitious goals the department is working to fulfill by the end of the fiscal year, on June 30. We encourage you to read this plan online at ldh.la.gov/businessplan. The State Health Improvement Plan will cover five years of improving health in Louisiana. To get a sense of where this plan is head- ed, the Bureau of Media and Communica- tions’ Elizabeth Bueche and Kevin Litten had conversations with two Office of Public Health staff who are responsible for coordi- nating the State Health Improvement Plan and bringing it into existence next year: Bu- reau of Planning and Performance Director Katherine Cain and Deputy Director Robert Hines. Completing this moves us to the final step of a two-part process: the creation of the State Health Improvement Plan. The last State Health Improvement Plan was completed in 2016, a year in which Gover- nor John Bel Edwards expanded Medicaid to hundreds of thousands of adults who did not have access to health insurance. This State Health Improvement Plan, which is slated for completion by summer of 2022, will come amid an unprecedent- ed event — an ongoing, first-in-a-century, global pandemic. As the department con- tinues to respond to the COVID-19 cri- sis, #TeamLDH is working on long-term solutions to some of the most persistent health-related problems in our state. On Nov. 1, LDH Secretary Courtney N. Phillips, PhD, released the department’s business COLUMN LDH CORNER In 2021, the Louisiana Department of Health was busy at work finishing the State HealthAssessment, which serves as a report card on the health of Louisiana residents across our state. Q&A with Bureau of Planning and Performance Director Katherine Cain and Deputy Director Robert Hines How LDH is Engaging Louisiana Residents to Plan for a Healthier 2022 and Beyond Katherine L. Cain, MPH Director of the Bureau of Planning and Performance Louisiana Department of Health’s Office of Public Health