Webinars:
Coping with Stress and Compassion Fatigue in Health Center Settings Webinar Series
Although the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated stress symptoms in primary care settings, a healthcare professional may face stress on the job under usual conditions due to long shifts, competing responsibilities, and witnessing or hearing about difficult patient experiences. The National Center for Health in Public Housing hosted webinars that explained how compassion fatigue affects all health care workers, how to determine the signs and symptoms of compassion fatigue and provided management and self-help tools to help negate and avoid re-occurrence of severe fatigue.
In this webinar series, NCHPH also explored strategies and ideas to understand the importance of manifesting safety and self-compassion, learn how taking a resiliency and design thinking approach will allow us to navigate crisis and uncertainty, and practice the tools to develop wellness in ourselves and those we serve alongside throughout this challenging time.
The Impact of EHR Use on Health Center Staffing and Productivity
With the evolution of technology and the growth of Health Center Programs in the United States, the use of Electronic Health Record (EHR) technology to improve the provision of patient care in a Health Center setting has grown tremendously in recent years. However, At least 70% of physicians using EHRs continue to attribute their administrative burdens to their EHR use. A recent research Report from GWU Health Workforce Research Center shows how the introduction of new technology influences staffing models, staff roles and workflow, and how these changes in turn influence productivity, coordination between providers and quality of care. This webinar will present the recent study conducted by GWU and its findings, and will provide the perceptions of EHRs effects on staffing and productivity from a Public Housing Primary Care Program Perspective.
Healthy Together: A Toolkit for Health Center Collaborations with HUD-Assisted Housing and Community-Based Organizations
This webinar by NCHPH and NNCC walked through an updated resource toolkit for partnerships with organizations, e.g., Public Housing Agencies, managing current HUD-Assisted housing programs, including Public Housing, Housing Choice Voucher, Multifamily, and resident services programs, including FSS, ROSS, Jobs Plus and Connect Home; as well as partnerships with other community-based organizations. It illustrated how health center staff can (a) identify housing partners, (b) create common language and goals to ensure partnership success, and (c) sustain partnerships over time.
Using Technology to Improve Access to Health Care
Electronic communication, such as emails, patient portals or text messaging, can be a useful tool in the practice of medicine and can facilitate communication within a patient-physician relationship. Throughout healthcare, there has been a recent push for electronic communications to be used more frequently to improve quality of care. This webinar explored the different technologies and devices used by two Health Centers to improve their communications with patients, their access to care, provided examples and lessons learned.
Learning Collaboratives:
Addressing COVID-19’s Impact on Health Centers’ Finance and Operations and Response Planning for Future COVID-19 Outbreaks and Other Emergencies
This learning collaborative guides participants through the challenges and solutions for addressing the financial and operational impacts of COVID-19 on health centers serving residents of public housing and other underserved communities, with an emphasis on applied response planning for future emergencies.
Building an Effective Collaborative Care Team to Address Diabetes in Special and Vulnerable Populations: Tailoring Care for Social Context
This session focused on the necessary elements to develop a high functioning patient-centered team for diabetes prevention, management, and treatment in primary care. The session addressed the roles of all members of the team including the critical role of leadership and clinical champions to building an effective collaborative team. This session laid the groundwork for the full series by engaging participants in a discussion of how to tailor diabetes care for social context. The conversation focused on the key elements needed for treating diabetes in the primary care and community setting with an emphasis on team-based approaches to wellness.
Identifying and Treating People with Prediabetes
Prediabetes is a serious health condition where blood sugar levels are higher than normal, but not high enough yet to be diagnosed as type 2 diabetes. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 84 million American adults—more than 1 out of 3—have prediabetes. Of those with prediabetes, 90% don’t know they have it. In this session participants discussed statistics of prediabetes and conversion rates from prediabetes to diabetes, identify patients at risk for diabetes, resources to screen and test for prediabetes and the use of EHRs to identify people with prediabetes.
Social Determinants of Health Screening Tools for Public Housing Residents
In this learning collaborative, NCHPH guided participants through the practical aspects of identifying and implementing an SDOH screening process at their health center. The series went beyond the basics by covering issues such as:
• building trust while assessing social risks;
• integrating data to improve patient engagement;
• evaluating impact on patient outcomes and health center procedures;
• understanding the variability and utilization of specific screening tools that are dependent on the context of health issues;
• reimbursement and funding strategies to pay for SDOH screening and referrals.
Each session included insight and promising practices from an expert in the health care field.
Publications:
Bridging the Digital Divide: Using Technology to Improve Access to Health Care for Public Housing Residents
The purpose of this report is to outline the digital needs and challenges of public housing residents, the risks and benefits of using technology to improve patient care, and recommendations on how to prepare health centers and patients to optimize digital tools, improve access to care, and enhance efforts through partnerships to bridge the digital divide.
Impact of COVID-19 On Public Housing Primary Care (PHPC) Health Center Patients and Operations
This publication by NCHPH highlights findings from a survey distributed to public housing residents assessing the effects that COVID-19 has had on Public Housing Primary Care (PHPC) patients and health center operations.