271358 “Working in concert: A collaborative training approach to build cohesion between community health workers and emerging physicians”

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Angela Ellison, MEd , UIC Neighborhoods Iniative, Chicago, IL
Clinical Community Health Workers are integral members of several patient centered medical home models. These paraprofessionals complement the formal medical training of their colleagues by serving as cultural mediators and social navigators for patients. However, the CHW profession faces the ongoing challenge of establishing effective working relationships and interactions with credentialed healthcare professionals such as physicians who may not understand or have an appreciation for the expertise that CHWs bring to clinical care teams, or their contribution to population based healthcare delivery. Similarly, CHWs may not understand how to effectively communicate and engage physicians in order to appropriately advocate for patients. These barriers could result from the fact that doctors and community health workers rarely have the opportunity to interact during the training phases of their professional development. This presentation will discuss the development, implementation and impacts of the Community Health Worker Family Medicine Training Fellowship, a program designed to expose CHWs, 3rd year medical students and residents, to collaborative learning experiences that increase cohesion between their roles on clinical care teams. CHWs and emerging physicians participated in interactive sessions where they learned and applied active listening and other patient-centered communication strategies. Residents and medical students also shadowed the CHWs in various community settings. Findings from this program have implications for enhancing the capacity of community health workers to improve care in clinical settings and for training culturally competent physicians who can work in diverse clinical teams.

Learning Areas:
Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Basic medical science applied in public health
Clinical medicine applied in public health
Diversity and culture
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs

Learning Objectives:
Presenters will be able to: 1) Explain how social inequities and barriers to healthcare access create the need for culturally competent clinical care teams 2) Discuss the value of community health workers for improving health outcomes in low income minority communities; and 3) Describe two best practices for conducting collaborative trainings between community health workers and emerging physicians to promote cohesion between these roles.

Keywords: Workforce, Community Health Promoters

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am qualified to present on this topic because I have been an administrator for more than 20 years in programs that utilize community health workers. I have trained community health workers in a variety of projects and am currently providing leadership training to consumers and community health workers in a large federally funded infant mortality reduction program. I am also a skilled facilitator and have facilitated workshops around the world.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.