Monday, June 22, 2015

Dr. Luna Meeting 6.16.15

Meeting notes with Dr. Luna:
  • ​​Community health worker (promoters de salud or CHW): General idea is to help develop an advanced training and empower CHWs 
    • Skills that the CHWs need to be advocates for patients: English language, navigation, how to speak with a health care provider etc
    • A defined skill set should be developed. Promotores should not take the place of a physician
    • Curriculum should work backwards from defined skill set to specific learning objectives
  • ​​Spencer Moore performed extensive interviews with current and past CHWs. From his final report, UVA-GI started meeting with key organizations and stakeholders like Crescendo Juntos, Sin Barreras, and the Health Department on how to go about restoring the network of CHWs.
    • From this collaboration, the idea of a new para-curriculum that would complement the basic CHW training was proposed
  • ​​​​​​Health department: There is currently a committee about the CHW initiative and there is a subcommittee that focuses on latino CHWs
    • Putnam Ivey is now the person who is leading the CHW training at the health department. She is bilingual with a lot of ideas and energy that will be helpful as we begin re-building the network of Latino CHWs.
    • ​​​We hope to invite about 15-20 CHWs past and present (those who recently complete the basic course) to take part in the advanced training.
  • ​There are other health systems that have strong CHW programs: University of Pennsylvania, University of Maryland, University of Texas, program in Seattle, program in Chicago
    • It would be beneficial to learn from these programs
    • Possible project would be to do field work at one of these locations to learn about the programs and to learn best practices
  • ​Melissa and Steven will do background research on CHW. 
  • All agree that having amazing list where we share new research and articles with stakeholders involved will be helpful.
  • At the free clinic, Dr. Luna has started a Latino clinic one evening a week. The hope is that eventually latino patients can be part of a  regular clinic with the help of CHWs.
    • not just providers, but bilingual front desk staff, nurses, medical students, etc to ensure door-to-door bilingual service
    • CHW can follow up with patients after seeing a physician, ex. for HTN check after starting a new medication
      • physician-CHW communication and trust is key here!
  • Mapping: add to maps designed by Ariel in 2013
    • Ideas from 2013: add service providers, bus routes
    • Idea from Dr. Luna: add CHW so we can see who lives closest to a particular patient who needs extra supervision

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