How and why do we effectively equip Community Health Workers to reduce incidence of type 2 diabetes (DM) among Latino communities? DM affects almost 30 million people in the United States (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019). US Latinos have one of the highest age-adjusted percentage of people 20 years or older with DM—12.1% compared to 7.4% of non-Hispanic whites (CDC, 2019). Effective interventions are required to stem morbidity and mortality and costs attributed to DM. Developing an active and knowledgeable health care team is one potential cost-saving approach to health care delivery and quality improvement. Training frontline community health workers (CHWs) in chronic disease such as DM strengthens health care services in communities and can reduce fragmentation of care for patients.
CHWs are trusted members of a community, enabling them to serve as a link between health and social services agencies and the community to facilitate access to services and improve the quality-of-service delivery. Additionally, CHWs build community and individual capacity by increasing health knowledge through outreach, education, counseling, social support, and advocacy.
The Project Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (Project ECHO) is an effective training model for health care providers and CHWs. Developed at the University of New Mexico in 2003 as a platform to improve access to evidence-based care facing complex health problems, it has been utilized globally in at least 38 countries (Project ECHO, 2020). Project ECHO relies on best practices, including adhering to evidence-based practice and guidelines.
For the past eight years, Migrant Clinicians Network has utilized the Project ECHO framework to train CHWs in best practices in DM prevention and management. Over a series of six 90-minute session, a core group of about 22 CHWs and other peer educators participate in sessions on DM focusing on what is DM, complications from the disease, including how the various systems of the body are affected, nutrition and DM, DM treatments that include medications and improved lifestyle, gestational diabetes, and mental health and DM.
This webinar will review the components of MCN’s Project ECHO series with CHWs on DM. It will provide an overview of the content of the training, the use of a patient education comic book utilized both in the series and by the CHWs for patient education, and a discussion of the value of CHW trainings provided in Spanish.
At the conclusion of this presentation, participants will be able to…
- Understand the value of CHWs in the health care team to address prevention and treatment in DM
- Assess the value and adaptation of the Project ECHO model for CHWs
- Describe the value of an evidence-based patient education tool (i.e. Comic Book)
- Discuss the importance of CHW training in the language of the CHWs.
- Review the knowledge gained by participants.
- Describe the geographical locations where participants work.
Presenters
Lois Wessel, DNP, FNP-BC is a professor at the School of Nursing and Health Studies at Georgetown University. She practices clinically at CCI Health & Wellness in Silver Spring, MD with a focus on immigrant and refugee health. She is bilingual (English and Spanish) and is involved with numerous community and environmental health programs including the Mid-Atlantic Center for Children's Health and the Environment, Migrant Clinicians Network and the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments. She was a Duke Johnson & Johnson Nurse Leadership Fellow and is a member of the editorial board for the Journal for Nurse Practitioners. Dr. Wessel's areas of interest include community health workers, Project ECHO, health literacy, environmental health, food justice, and team-based care.