Abstract

Leveraging Community Feedback to Reduce Health Inequities and Access to Care Barriers in Oregon’s COVID-19 Response

Colin Sanders¹, Sarah Dobra, JD, MPH¹, Nnenna Ananko, MPH², Stephanie Serafino, MPH², Leonard Villagomez² (1)Oregon Health Authority, (2)Deloitte Consulting

APHA 2022 Annual Meeting and Expo

Background: Health inequities and barriers to accessing care have been an issue throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, Oregon Health Authority (OHA) prioritized leveraging community feedback to support the COVID-19 response and reduce health inequities across the state.
Aims: OHA’s COVID-19 feedback management system was designed to center equity while delivering excellent customer service, escalating feedback for systematic response, and tracking and categorizing feedback. To increase transparency, the COVID-19 Feedback Team also prioritized following up with individuals to inform them of how their feedback helped OHA improve its COVID-19 response. Additionally, the COVID-19 Feedback Team regularly shared data with OHA leaders and stakeholders to help enhance agency systems and services.
Methods: The Feedback Team developed and utilized a robust feedback management app to collect, track, and respond to COVID-19 feedback received from people in Oregon. Feedback was submitted by individuals, internal OHA programs (Accessibility Team, Public Health Directors Office, etc.), and external agency partners (211 info, Oregon Department of Human Services, etc.) Feedback was submitted via phone, email, postal mail, online webform, and spreadsheets. The collected feedback was organized, and data reports were created monthly to share insights with OHA leaders and staff. The data was also used to raise awareness of equity concerns, highlight gaps in accessing care, and generally assist OHA in managing the COVID-19 response.
Results: The COVID-19 Feedback Team distributed over 20 monthly data reports and supported over 13 programs. The team identified and elevated barriers to providing equitable access to COVID-19 related care. The team identified many gaps in providing equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, including vaccine clinics not being physically accessible, not providing interpretation, or requiring Social Security Numbers and insurance to register for an appointment, to name a few. As of April 15th, 2022, the COVID-19 Feedback Team has received 3,378 pieces of feedback from 3,230 unique individuals. Of those pieces of feedback, 202 (6%) were equity related.
Conclusion: COVID-19 revealed and emphasized long standing health inequities across Oregon. Utilizing a comprehensive feedback management process enabled OHA to address health disparities and help people overcome barriers to accessing care. These lessons will be valuable as OHA considers ways to improve its health systems beyond the COVID-19 response and recovery.