California-area IHS work group kicks off population study to size two regional specialty centers

Consultants from Bowdoin and the Inova Group and representatives from the California Area Indian Health Service convened a 90‑minute work‑group meeting to begin a population study intended to produce a single, defensible user-population number to inform sizing and services for two proposed regional specialty care centers.

"The goal of this phase is to arrive at what we think is an appropriate and a sustainable population number," said David Ayers, population study lead with the Inova Group, describing the study outputs that will feed planning documents (PGD and POR) and subsequent governance work. The study will inform the size, staffing and scope of the two regional points of care identified in earlier planning work.

Project managers said the study will combine multiple data sources, solicit input from area offices, service units and urban Indian programs, and require coordination with IHS headquarters. Alex Hokonen, project manager for Bowdoin, said the team will circulate a draft data-request checklist and asked the work group to identify additions or removals. The team set an internal target to collect initial feedback by Oct. 10 and an optimistic target of early November for initial fulfillment of some data sources.

Work-group members emphasized the difficulty of the task in California because of inconsistent reporting and fragmented care. Jonathan Rasch, director of environmental health and engineering for the California Area Indian Health Service, noted reporting gaps and urged exploration of alternative datasets. Participants flagged Medi‑Cal and Covered California as potential supplemental sources and discussed county- and community‑level data as advantageous where available.

Facilitators said the team will review the checklist with the California Area Office and IHS headquarters during the study so the methodology and outputs will be acceptable for future planning and funding conversations. Jonathan Rasch volunteered to serve as the area point of contact to help coordinate the data request and to forward recordings for colleagues who could not attend.

Next steps: the consulting team will circulate the data-request checklist to the work group for feedback, designate points of contact to facilitate fulfillment, and begin assembling the prioritized sources for review with IHS headquarters. No formal decisions or votes were taken during the kickoff meeting; the group agreed to reconvene its work as the checklist is refined.