Track 3-3
Community

Community Driven Research and Planning to Improve Patient/Provider Relationships and Health Outcomes

Community-based health services do not necessarily mean that services are representative of the expressed needs or desires of the community. Well-intentioned medical providers who start clinics in medically underserved areas, often become overwhelmed by their lack of knowledge about the community, which can turn "good intentions: into feelings of alienation from the people they wish to serve and which can leave community with misperceptions and unfulfilled expectations. The Westside Health Authority, a consortium of community organizations on the west side of Chicago trained community women to research barriers so they could report back to the providers. The aim was to improve interactions between patients and providers in four health care sites. The project, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, not only significantly improved patient--provider relationships, but improved the planning process.

Examples of barriers among providers included clinic settings that often:

1. ignored the need for privacy;
2. had no signs, or posted signs that were to small or misleading;
3. provided no information to identify staff;
4. provided inadequate facilities for children waiting;
5. misunderstood women’s fears.

Examples of barriers to effective health care, especially in managed care associated with patients include those who:

1. did not understand the importance of follow-up visits;
2. did not understand scheduling appointments;
3. did not understand the need for completing medications;
4. feared mail about a lab test, often discarding it, and discontinuing with the provider;
5. misunderstood generic drugs, believing "you have to take twice as much";
6. clung to their historical bond with the public hospital.

   Claire Kohrman, PhD
   Jacqueline Reed, MA
   Westside Health Authority
   5437 W. Division
   Chicago, IL 60651
   Phone: (773) 378-0233
   Fax: (773) 378-5035

Claire Kohrman, PhD, a sociologist, works with and studies urban communities, health care, and the training of health care professionals. Since 1991 she has been working with the Westside Health Authority (WHA), a community based organization, to study health care on the west side of Chicago. She recently completed a study as part of the Robert Wood Johnson and Kaiser Family Foundations’ Initiative, "Opening Doors: Reducing Sociocultural Barriers to Health Care," her third collaborative study with the Westside Health Authority. These studies are based in the community, characteristically training community residents in qualitative research methods.

Jacqueline Reed is the founder and Executive Director of the Westside Health Authority, a community based health care advocacy organization made up of forty-one member groups. The Westside Health Authority, formed in 1988 in response to hospital closings, seeks to provide an opportunity for community people to participate in shaping public policies affecting their lives. WHA organizes the resources of citizens and providers to meet community needs and advocate for change. Ms. Reed combines over twenty-five years of experience in social work with community organizing. Her diverse experience from private and public care giving institutions enriched her capacity to understand the complexities of change through traditional health and social services, and led her to community through organizing WHA as a grassroots planning group to promote change from within. Through capacity organizing, the community was able to purchase and convert a closed community hospital into a multi-faceted community center, which houses a bank, several health clinics, pharmacy and social service. Other capacity building work has focused on relationship building among neighbors on a block by block basis.  NEXT >

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