Strengthening the role of Community Health Representatives in the Navajo Nation

Autor: Olivia Muskett, Hannah Sehn, Cameron Curley, Sonya Shin, Vikas Gampa, Jamy Malone, Alex Goldman, Mae-Gilene Begay, Christian Brown, Casey Smith, Adrianne Katrina Nelson, Caroline King
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2017
Předmět:
Male
medicine.medical_specialty
Health coaching
Attitude of Health Personnel
media_common.quotation_subject
Organizations
Nonprofit
Chronic disease
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Professional Role
Nursing
Health care
Southwestern United States
Medicine
Health Services
Indigenous
Humans
Community health representatives
Electronic health records
030212 general & internal medicine
Longitudinal Studies
media_common
Teamwork
030505 public health
Community health workers
business.industry
Public health
lcsh:Public aspects of medicine
Diabetes
Public Health
Environmental and Occupational Health
American Indians
lcsh:RA1-1270
Focus Groups
Focus group
language.human_language
Community-Institutional Relations
Health promotion
Navajo
Cross-Sectional Studies
Community health
language
Indians
North American
Female
Clinic-community linkages
Patient Participation
0305 other medical science
business
Program Evaluation
Research Article
Zdroj: BMC Public Health, Vol 17, Iss 1, Pp 1-10 (2017)
BMC Public Health
ISSN: 1471-2458
DOI: 10.1186/s12889-017-4263-2
Popis: Background Strengthening Community Health Worker systems has been recognized to improve access to chronic disease prevention and management efforts in low-resource communities. The Community Outreach and Patient Empowerment (COPE) Program is a Native non-profit organization with formal partnerships with both the Navajo Nation Community Health Representative (CHR) Program and the clinical facilities serving the Navajo Nation. COPE works to better integrate CHRs into the local health care system through training, strengthening care coordination, and a standardized culturally appropriate suite of health promotion materials for CHRs to deliver to high-risk individuals in their homes. Methods The objective of this mixed methods, cross sectional evaluation of a longitudinal cohort study was to explore how the COPE Program has effected CHR teams over the past 6 years. COPE staff surveyed CHRs in concurrent years (2014 and 2015) about their perceptions of and experience working with COPE, including potential effects COPE may have had on communication among patients, CHRs, and hospital-based providers. COPE staff also conducted focus groups with all eight Navajo Nation CHR teams. Results CHRs and other stakeholders who viewed our results agree that COPE has improved clinic-community linkages, primarily through strengthened collaborations between Public Health Nurses and CHRs, and access to the Electronic Health Records. CHRs perceived that COPE’s programmatic support has strengthened their validity and reputation with providers and clients, and has enhanced their ability to positively effect health outcomes among their clients. CHRs report an improved ability to deliver health coaching to their clients. Survey results show that 80.2% of CHRs feel strongly positive that COPE trainings are useful, while 44.6% of CHRs felt that communication and teamwork had improved because of COPE. Conclusions These findings suggest that CHRs have experienced positive benefits from COPE through training. COPE may provide a useful programmatic model on how best to support other Community Health Workers through strengthening clinic-community linkages, standardizing competencies and training support, and structuring home-based interventions for high-risk individuals.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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