Tres Historias de la Vida: Interactive Theatre for Diabetes Education and effective way to teach their Spanish speaking population about diabetes. …
March 2007
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Welcome
This March issue highlights Spring: A Season of Clearing, Planting, and
Expectation
Tools and Resources
:: MCN wins website award
:: MCNs Online Clinical Education
Success Stories
:: Tres Historias de la Vida: Interactive Theatre for Diabetes Education
Simple Solutions Highlighting PDSA cycles or creative approaches to
problems
:: Spring Break Service projects
:: Mothers Day possibilities
Feedback from the Field
:: Cancer Collaborative news
WELCOME
Health Care for the Homeless HCH Clinicians Network and Migrant
Clinicians Network MCN are pleased to welcome you to this edition of our
joint e-newsletter, Reaching the Underserved: Connecting Mobile Homeless
People to the Health Disparities Collaborative HCH Clinicians Network
and MCN serve as National Partners to the HRSA Health Disparities
Collaboratives This Spring newsletter focuses on the fresh ideas and
opportunities that are part of this season Now is the time to shake off
the gray of winter and plan to spring forward-not just with the clocks, but
with our programs Well highlight ways you can clear the ground to really
impact the health of migrating and homeless
populations, plant ideas and
programs for now and next season, and expect more from your collaborative
efforts in reporting and resource development Find out how you can help
expecting moms, too And honor your own mom
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TOOLS AND RESOURCES
Web Award MCN is excited to announce that our website was chosen for a
World Wide Web Award of Merit We were recognized as a leading health site
in the category of Association/Professional Society This designation is a
QI indicator
:: What Is the World Wide Web Health Awards?
The World Wide Web Health Awards is a program that recognizes the best Web-
based health-related content for consumers and professionals The program
is held twice a year - spring/summer and fall/winter - with the goal of
providing a seal of quality for electronic health information Check it
out at:
http://wwwhealthawardscom/wwwha/ss2006winners/mp_webhtm
And keep getting resources from both the HCH and MCN websites
::Online Clinical Education via MCN
MCN now has online continuing education courses available These courses
are FREE and available to all HDC teams A wide range of
migrant/underserved/mobile topics are available
MCNs comprehensive
Clinical Distance Education Program is designed to develop excellence in
clinical practice, clinical leadership, cultural competence and your
working knowledge in the physical, mental, and environmental health of
migrant farmworkers and other mobile, underserved populations These
courses are currently accredited for nurses and health educators and
application is pending for CME
Tale a look at:
http://wwwmigrantclinicianorg/development/education/onlinelearning
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SUCCESS STORIES
Tres Historias de la Vida: Interactive Theatre for Diabetes Education
Sea Mar Health Centers, Inc has a creative, exciting, and effective way to
teach their Spanish speaking population about diabetes Through innovative
popular education and collaboration with the community, Sea Mar has put on
Tres Historias de la Vida It is an interactive theatre production that
is both spontaneous and scripted Performers, who are actual patients and
employees at Sea Mar, act in three scenes which depict various struggles
with diabetes The actors get into dilemmas, and ask the audience for
advice The result is always captivating, entertaining, and
informative
The traveling theatre group has performed at a number of churches and local
halls in the Seattle area They have received some funding from the WA
State Dept of Health and from Project REACH Hopefully, they will record
their work and help others to do the same Sounds like a good summer
workshop project for some of those college kids Thank you to Fernando Leon
and Sara Barker for sharing this success story
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SIMPLE SOLUTIONS
MOTHERS DAY GIVING FOR MOTHERS IN NEED
MCN is starting their Mothers Day campaign April 1st This effort helps to
support access to prenatal care for mobile poor women, and last year
enabled dozens of women to receive distant case management by MCN This
program is offered to all Collaborative health centers free of charge If
youre looking for a great Mothers Day gift, purchase a beautiful card
with original artwork by one of our MCN staff members It will honor your
mother or a mother you love with a donation to MCN and help a migrant woman
access essential healthcare during her pregnancy For more information
visit wwwmigrantclinicianorg
SPRING BREAK AND SUMMER SERVICE PROJECTS
Need help with a special
project to serve your needy population? Many
college programs have been in the news for their sponsorship of
alternatives to vacation breaks for spring and summer breaks During this
past month, a corps of college students worked in the Central Valley of CA,
distributing aid to farmworkers who have been out of work due to crop
failures Other groups work in homeless shelters, develop health education,
assist in preschool programs, and generally try to assist where they are
needed Health centers can sponsor such students for a week to a month
Just have a good volunteer policy, provide local housing and a modest food
stipend, and coordinate your efforts with a university or college in your
area Many schools give students some form of credit or tuition assistance
for such work Just make sure you have a good plan for their time, and you
may even recruit a future employee Dr McLaurin started as an unpaid
outreach worker through a university summer program 20 years ago Visit
this typical college program for fresh ideas:
http://wwwsaintmarysedu/ocse/summerservicepagehtm
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FEEDBACK FROM THE FIELD
Cancer Collaborative teams have been working
hard to improve prevention,
tracking, follow-up, and treatment for cancer Dr Andrea Caracostis MCN
has assisted teams with the care of their mobile populations through cancer
tracking patient navigation as they migrate Recently, she conducted a
survey of HDC teams around delivery system design Heres the summary of
her findings For the complete article, look for the next edition of MCN
STREAMLINE:
Increasing Cancer Survivorship in Mobile Underserved Populations Survey
Results
Andrea Caracostis, MD
Through funding of the Lance Armstrong Foundation, MCN conducted a survey
in November, 2006 to identify the systems currently in place in migrant and
community health centers affecting cancer survivorship This information
will help MCN and others understand how to increase the capacity of
clinicians to impact patient survivorship by providing critical support and
quality services to cancer patients
Little is known about how migrant and community health centers M/CHC
screen, diagnose and follow up mobile underserved patients with cancer
This survey was designed to begin exploring these issues
The survey was developed online
through MCNs website Notification about
the survey was distributed using the National Health Disparities
Collaboratives Cluster List serve and the MCN email list Ninety nine
clinicians responded to the survey and 30 of them agreed to participate in
an in-depth interview via telephone
Results:
Eighty six percent of the clinics that participated in the survey said that
they perform on site cancer screening
The most common types of cancer screened for at clinics were cervical 82,
breast 80, colon 68, prostate 73, testicular 55, skin cancer 54 and 2
other cancers
On average, 50 of adult patients in the clinics are screened for cancer
Clinicians were asked to identify the most common reasons for not
performing on-site cancer screening The most common barriers cited were:
acute care problems needing immediate attention significantly interfere
with screening 49; lack of resources to do screening 40; patients are
not interested in screening 20 and fear among clinicians that there will
be no access to follow-up care 16
For those sites that do perform onsite screen, results are delivered in an
average of 22 weeks
The time it takes from the reporting of abnormal results to the
diagnosis
varies from 2 weeks according to 29 of respondents, to more than 4 weeks
according to 18 of the respondents
Cancer diagnosis is most often performed at the local hospital 35,
followed by the clinic site 29
When providing follow-up care to cancer patients, clinics most often turn
to local or state services Only 14 of respondents mentioned using
national organizations such as NCI, ACS or LAF to provide support to their
patients
Conclusions
The findings of this survey are preliminary and more research should be
done to explore barriers to care and how these may lead to health
disparities The barriers cited to performing on-site screening are
significant and also lend themselves to further patient and provider
education In particular, the responses that indicate a lack of interest
from patients and a fear among clinicians about the inability to follow up
need to be addressed It is evident that clinicians screening and following
cancer patients need support encouraging their patients to get screened
Clinicians could also clearly benefit from tools to help navigate their
patients through follow up and referral MCN will continue to explore
these issues in the coming
months as our cancer initiative expands
For further information or tools about cancer in migrant patients please
visit our website at wwwmigrantclinicianorg/excellence/cancer You may
also contact Andrea Caracostis at 281-496-7522
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Editors:
Jennie A McLaurin, MD, MPH
Health Disparities Collaboratives Coordinator
Migrant Clinicians Network
jmclaurin@migrantcliniciancom
Sharon Morrison, RN, MAT
Health Disparities Collaboratives Coordinator
HCH Clinicians Network
National Health Care for the Homeless Council
smorrison@nhchcorg
Source:seattle.gov
