HOSPITAL CORNER

Over the last few years, we have learned a lot about where healthcare happens versus where we think it happens. Take this example: A patient is called and reminded about their doctors’ appointment coming up on Thursday. The patient hangs up the phone and realizes that the battery in their car has been acting up again, and they do not have any local family to help so they call to cancel their appointment. For patients with chronic illness, this is a terrible situation where health outcomes are being impacted by reliable transportation. When our front desk gets a call like this, they will tell the patient that we have transportation available and that one of our Community Health Workers (CHW) will pick them up for their appointment.

Our CHWs are well trained social engineers! They anticipate and they pivot quickly when situations call for it. We have placed battery chargers on batteries, we have picked patients up and found that access to their house is not safe and have put the patients in contact with people to help fix stairs or ramps. We have talked with patients after their appointments and realized that they were unable to read the instructions on the medicine bottles because they lost their reading glasses. Taking medications on time and as instructed is especially important and it is surprising how often reading glasses are the solution. We have even discovered that a couple of our patients could not read at all, through getting to know them, and changed the way we provided instructions instead of just assuming that the paperwork was enough.

When you think about what is healthcare, it is not simply seeing your provider or getting your prescription renewed. It is being able to get out of your house safely, get to your appointment on time, understand the paperwork provided, and being able to read the instructions on your prescription bottles. It’s having a medication organizer to separate your pills by morning and night and by the day of the week. Our Community Health Workers are constantly filling these little gaps and cracks so that our patients can realize the benefits of the care they are receiving.

Here is one of the descriptions of a Community Health Worker: CHWs are frontline public health workers who have a close understanding of the community they serve. This trusting relationship enables them to serve as a liaison/link/intermediary between health/social services and the community to facilitate access to services and improve the quality and cultural competence of service delivery. Community Health Workers also build individual and community capacity by increasing health knowledge and self-sufficiency through a range of activities such as outreach, community education, informal counseling, social support and advocacy.