Reducing Health Disparities Among Hispanic Elders: Lessons from a Learning Network (Team Chicago)

Slide Presentation from the AHRQ 2008 Annual Conference

On September 10, 2008, Susan Vega made this presentation at the 2008 Annual Conference. Select to access the PowerPoint® presentation (450 KB; ).

Slide 1

Reducing Health Disparities Among Hispanic Elders: Lessons from a Learning Network (Team Chicago)

AHRQ Annual Meeting 2008
September 10, 2008
Washington, DC

Susan Vega
Senior Advocate
Alivio Medical Center

Slide 2

Why is your community doing this?

• Address chronic diseases in Latino seniors.
• Adult onset diabetes negatively affecting quality of life for Latino seniors and their families.
• Need to work together to develop and implement interventions that have long-lasting effects.
• Develop plan that depends less on clinical interventions and more on community resources.

Slide 3

Chicago Area Latinos

• 1,071,740 Latinos in Chicago and Suburban Cook County—22.2% of population.
• 73% of Latinos in Chicago/Cook County are Mexican immigrants or of Mexican descent.
• One in four will develop adult onset diabetes.

Slide 4

Team Chicago's Target Communities

• Little Village in Chicago—southwest of downtown.
• Cicero in suburbs—just west of Little Village.
• Largest number of Latinos in all of Chicago community areas and largest numbers in suburban Cook County.
• Almost 10,000 residents 65+.
• 72% of Latinos 65+ in Little Village and 63% of Cicero Latinos 65+ live with families.

Slide 5

What is the plan you hope to implement?

• Tomando Control de Su Salud, Stanford's Chronic Disease Self- Management Program (CDSMP) in Spanish.
• Additional programming, Improving Latino Health, focused on one-on-one coaching, community resources, and individualized needs.
• Targeting two contiguous largely Mexican/Mexican-American communities—one city and one suburban.

Slide 6

Partnership Members and Roles

Slide 7

How did the team build capacity before engaging clinical partners?

• Key organizations brought resources to process:
  • Alivio—Compañeros en Salud.
  • Rush—Experience connecting clinicians with CDSMP.
• Age Options, Chicago Department of Senior Services, and Rush already funded through Administration on Aging (AOA) and National Council on Aging (NCOA) for CDSMP.
• Leveraged resources to build Team Chicago's capacity for implementing Tomando Control de Su Salud.
• Helped to focus Team Chicago's choice of intervention.

Slide 8

How is the team engaging clinical providers?

• Alivio Medical Center will pilot intervention.
• Senior Advocate pitched intervention to clinical staff.
• Alivio process may serve as model for other clinical settings.

Slide 9

Accomplishments

• Development of Core Working Team.
• Development and refinement of Team Charter.
• Development of Implementation Plan.
• Training in Take Charge of Your Health and Tomando Control de Su Salud.
• Schedule of Tomando Control de Su Salud classes in target communities to meet objectives of Implementation Plan.
• Site agreements with Alivio Medical Center.
• Tentative agreements with two additional healthcare providers.

Slide 10

How was the Learning Network helpful to Team Chicago and their project?

• Provided impetus to take on the effort.
• Provided assistance in focusing efforts.
• Served as "reality check".
• Provided framework/template.
• Kept project "on-track" through process, e.g., monthly Team Chicago calls and All-Teams calls.
• Provided forum for problem-solving.
• Provided resources, e.g, October 2007 Workshop, AHRQ Data Chartbook, NCOA-American Society on Aging (ASA) Health Enhancement Program (HEP) adjunct meeting, Site Visit, additional calls.

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Most Challenging Aspect

• Team process/collaborations.
• Group learning curve.
• Getting buy-in from sponsoring organizations.
• Helping clinicians understand role of intervention.
• Helping clinicians understand usefulness of lay health promotion/interventions.
• Developing resources to meet community needs.

Slide 12

Lessons Learned

• Take nothing for granted.
• Everything takes longer than you think it will.
• Be open to new ideas.
• Be mindful of individual, group and organizational processes.
• Keep plugging along.
• There is no substitute for working together.
• Remember the vision thing.

Slide 13

For More Information

Susan Vega
Senior Advocate
Alivio Medical Center
966 W. 21st Street, Chicago, IL 60608
Tel. 312-829-6017
Fax 312-829-6822
svega@aliviomedicalcenter.org