HHS System Alignment

With the alignment of Public Health and Human Services to a single agency in 2022, Iowa HHS began to address challenges and improve the HHS system for everyone who calls Iowa home. In the summer and fall of 2023, HHS did an assessment to fix challenges and improve the HHS service delivery system. The assessment, managed by Health Management Associates (HMA), included feedback from town halls, stakeholder and staff interviews, stakeholder and consumer surveys to identify opportunities for improvement within 20 health and human service areas:

  • Local Governmental Public Health
  • Environmental Health
  • Emergency Preparedness Regions
  • Mental Health and Disability Services (MHDS) Regions
  • Integrated Provider Network (IPN) 
  • Tobacco Community Partnerships 
  • Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs) 
  • Community Action Agencies
  • Maternal Health
  • Child and Adolescent Health
  • Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC)
  • Family Planning
  • I-Smile
  • Family Development and Self-Sufficiency Program (FaDSS) 
  • Aging and Disability Resource Centers (ADRCs)
  • Area Agencies on Aging (AAAs) 
  • Locally delivered Medicaid services
  • Community Partnership for Protecting Children (CPPC) 
  • Early Childhood Iowa (ECI)
  • Decategorization (Decat) 

The following assessment report issued by HMA included recommendations for changes to current practices based on solutions implemented in other states. It also provided an overview of each of the service areas and gave recommendations to fully serve Iowans across five service delivery systems: 

  • Behavioral Health
  • Public Health 
  • Aging and Disability Services 
  • Family Well-Being and Protection 
  • Community Access 

HMA used information from HHS staff, feedback from town halls, stakeholder interviews and survey data to identify opportunities for improvement within the service areas.

HMA also provided recommendations for changes to current service delivery practices based on approaches implemented in other states. Additional information about the assessment process can be found in the HHS System Alignment Assessment Overview document in the Resources section below. 

HMA’s report outlines an overview of the service delivery areas and offers proposed recommendations to better align service delivery across five core functions:

  1.  Behavioral Health
  2. Public Health
  3. Aging and Disability
  4. Family Well-Being and Protection
  5. Community Access
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System Alignment Implementation

Iowa HHS must create clear pathways for Iowans who need care and use its resources to support good health outcomes, focus efforts, and unify administrative work. The scope of the needed system alignment work is great. Feedback received through the system alignment assessment, as well as through other means, identified behavioral health needs as a top priority. 

In early 2024, new legislation was proposed, outlining a new behavioral health service system for Iowa. During the legislative session, Iowa HHS actively engaged with stakeholders and decision-makers to incorporate feedback into House File (HF) 2673. The Iowa Legislature passed HF 2673 with bi-partisan support, and the bill was signed into law on May 15, 2024.  The law creates a new, person-centered behavioral health system. The system will create a shared responsibility model between Iowa HHS and system stakeholders to achieve statewide prevention, education, early intervention, treatment, recovery support and crisis services. 

Iowa’s Behavioral Health Service System will transfer the oversight of disability services from local Mental Health and Disability Services (MHDS) Regions to the Division of Aging & Disability Services. The tasks to achieve this transfer can be found in the Transition Plan for the Behavioral Health Service System Alignment.

Please check back for up-to-date content related to HHS system alignment. 

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Resources

System Alignment Assessment Resources

System Alignment Implementation Resources

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