An Equitable Health Collaborative: The EBAN Experience
InCommons Collaboration Challenge
An Equitable Health Collaborative: The EBAN Experience
The EBAN Experience is a 12 month team based collaborative to reduce health disparities through community participation, experiential education and quality improvement projects. Nine teams of health professionals and community members will improve access, reduce cultural barriers to care, and fix care system issues that influence the health of Latino, Somali, African American, Hmong and low income communities in Minnesota.
Each team will identify a specific health need of a community served, which will become the basis of a quality improvement project. For example, a clinic might identify improving prenatal care for Hmong patients as a goal.
Four quarterly one-day meetings will be held. At each meeting participants learn about quality improvement methods, share their progress, and plan next steps toward their health disparities improvement goals. Team members identify an issue, plan an intervention, make a change and monitor the results. Webinars on quality improvement, team building, leadership and collaboration take place between sessions. Results will be disseminated by the HealthPartners Institute for Medical Education through publications, presentations and online information services.
To heighten understanding of cultural issues that impact health, the teams are shown four screenplays, professionally written, acted and filmed for the initiative. Latino, Somali, Hmong and African-American patient stories serve as springboards for discussion.
The initiative will begin in March 2011. Mixed Blood Theater, Rainbow Research and TPT Public Television are partners.
About You
About You
First Name
Carl
Last Name
Patow
Country
United States, MN
About Your Organization
Organization
HealthPartners Insititue for Meducal Education
Organization Website
Organization Phone
952 883 7185
Organization Address
8170 33rd Ave South, Bloomington, MN 55425
Organization Country
United States, MN, Hennepin County
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Your Story
Collaboration Title
An Equitable Health Collaborative: The EBAN Experience
Country your work focuses on
United States, MN
Describe your locally-based collaboration and the problem it sought to address
The EBAN Experience is a 12 month team based collaborative to reduce health disparities through community participation, experiential education and quality improvement projects. Nine teams of health professionals and community members will improve access, reduce cultural barriers to care, and fix care system issues that influence the health of Latino, Somali, African American, Hmong and low income communities in Minnesota.
Each team will identify a specific health need of a community served, which will become the basis of a quality improvement project. For example, a clinic might identify improving prenatal care for Hmong patients as a goal.
Four quarterly one-day meetings will be held. At each meeting participants learn about quality improvement methods, share their progress, and plan next steps toward their health disparities improvement goals. Team members identify an issue, plan an intervention, make a change and monitor the results. Webinars on quality improvement, team building, leadership and collaboration take place between sessions. Results will be disseminated by the HealthPartners Institute for Medical Education through publications, presentations and online information services.
To heighten understanding of cultural issues that impact health, the teams are shown four screenplays, professionally written, acted and filmed for the initiative. Latino, Somali, Hmong and African-American patient stories serve as springboards for discussion.
The initiative will begin in March 2011. Mixed Blood Theater, Rainbow Research and TPT Public Television are partners.
Tell us about the community in which this collaboration took place
The initiative will involve many diverse communities in Minnesota, western Wisconsin and the Dakotas. Specific geographic communities include Riverside, Midway, Brooklyn Center and St Paul. Ethnic communities include East African, African American, Latino, Hmong, other vulnerable populations including those with limited English proficiency. Some teams are focused locally, others regionally.
Issue Selector
n/a
Partnership
Who was involved in co-creating or implementing your collaboration (other organizations, leaders, community members, etc.)?
HealthPartners, a non-profit integrated health system serving Minnesota, the Dakotas and western Wisconsin. Mixed Blood Theatre, a professional, multi-racial company, promoting cultural pluralism and individual equality.TPT television. Rainbow Research. Multiple community non-profit organizations helping to identify community members to participate on quality improvement teams.
To what extent does your collaboration involve partnerships that are outside or cross traditional organizational or sector boundaries?
This initiative has many unique partnerships: 1. A healthcare provider partnering with the communities it serves to better understand the influence of culture on health. 2.Using theater to make quality improvement personal and meaningful. 3.Dissemination of learnings and improvements through public media. 4.Partnerships with community non-profits to bring issues of disparities in health forward.
Innovation
What makes your locally-based collaboration innovative and unique?
The initiative is innovative in that integrates three features: a year-long commitment of 9 teams to improving the health of communities through a structured quality improvement process, partnering with diverse communities to understand the role of culture on health and the existing health system, and using theater to elevate the emotional and intellectual understanding of participants to the issues faced by members of ethnic communities as they seek health care and wellness.
Did you take risks in establishing this collaboration? Explain
To launch this initiative has taken the full backing of HealthPartners, its medical group and clinics, and our key partners. We have extensive experience with this model of quality improvement, and are confident that lasting change can be achieved. The key risks are lack of adequate community participation, overly large scope for projects and team fatigue. These will be overcome.
How did this collaboration differ from the normal way of doing your work?
Often in healthcare solutions to problems are sought without including the "customer" in the improvement process. This initiative includes community members, so that there will be greater understanding of cultural issues and better long lasting solutions. Including theater into learning activities is very unusual, and powerful. A structured, intense, 1 year timeframe shows dedication to improve.
Impact
How do you know your collaboration has been effective?
The collaboration that has already occurred between the educators, clinicians, community members, screenwriters, filming crew, evaluators and leadership has demonstrated that this initiative will provide meaningful and lasting improvements in care for diverse populations. HealthPartners has asked patients to voluntarily indicate their ethnicity when seeking care, and over 90% of patients have identified their race or culture. This data is the foundation on which all improvements will be judged. For example, the gap in measures for Latino diabetic patients has narrowed in our clinics, but is not yet equal among all ethnic groups. Changes in the care model made by the diabetes team will track improvements using culturally specific data. Each team has its own unique measures of success.
What progress or impact has been made?
So far, 9 teams have been identified: pediatric immunizations, diabetes, mammography rates, hospital readmissions, pain control, and colorectal cancer screening. Each team is working with one or more ethnic groups. The QI curriculum has been created. Screen writers have been identified and the Hmong script is being written. Contracts for TPT and Rainbow Research are in place. We launch in March!
Next Steps
How would you go about continuing, expanding, or replicating this collaboration?
This collaboration is based on a model previously used with 38 teaching hospitals across the US. The model is reproducible. The collaborative can be repeated here, or at other locations. The educational content of the collaborative, including the improvement curriculum and ethnic films can be used anywhere to generate other collaboartives. The films produced by TPT from the ethnic screenplays will be available for use, and will be shown on TPT to raise public awareness of health disparities issues. We would like to include three additional films about rural white, LGBT and Native American cultural issues affecting health. The learnings from the 9 teams will be shared widely throughout the HealthPartners system, and will be made available to other health systems, hospitals and community groups through a website, publications and presentations. Already the initiative has been presented at 5 national conferences and has been featured in one publication.
Describe the current stage of implementation and desired next steps
At present,9 teams have been created and their associated communities have been identified: pediatric immunizations (East African), diabetes (East African and African American), mammography rates (Latino, Somali, Hmong and African American women), hospital readmissions (Minority, vulnerable and limited English proficiency patients), pain control (Minority, vulnerable and limited English proficiency patients),dental disease (TBD), and colorectal cancer screening (Low income communities). All healthcare team members have been identified, and community members are being included in the teams. As was mentioned, the quality improvement curriculum has been created. Screen writers have been identified and the Hmong script is being written. Each playwright is native to the culture that the screenplay portrays, and every script is informed by interviews with community members from that ethnic community. Contracts for TPT and Rainbow Research are in place. Rainbow Research is providing assistance with evaluation of the initiative. A steering committee has been formed and is shaping the four quarterly meetings of the initiative. Between each large quarterly meeting the teams work independently to understand, analyze, act to make changes, and monitor improvements. The teams are connected by monthly conference calls, so that they can share experiences and motivate one another.
Between now and March 2011, the teams will begin to cone down on the specific issues that they plan to address, and will identify the measures by which their success will be determined. In succession, the Hmong, African American, Latino and Somali playwrights will complete the screen plays, which will be filmed by TPT television. After the last film is created, the plan is to have TPT create a montage from the films, which will be narrated. The montage will become a television program that informs the public about health disparities and the impact of culture on health and healthcare. The television program will be available through TPT and other media portals.
All teams will complete their projects in March 2012, and a public celebration will be held. Presentations and posters will describe the issues and improvements made by the teams, and the effect on the participating communities. A communications team will widely disseminate the methods and findings of the initiative.
| 138 weeks ago Carl Patow updated this Competition Entry. | |
| 138 weeks ago Carl Patow submitted this idea. |
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