Case Study | Community Health Center
Case Studies
Community Health Center, Inc. (CHC), a leading health-care provider in the state of Connecticut, offers primary medical, dental and mental health services to low-income, uninsured and underinsured patients using innovative service delivery models and state of the art technology. CHC is one of seven FQHCs enrolling for the All of Us Research Program (AoURP).
“Engaging with people who have historically been underrepresented in biomedical research was a cornerstone of our mission. The toolkit allowed us to design our outreach strategy in a participant-centric and inclusive way.” Amy TaylorVice President, CHC “The informed consent is critical to the success of participant engagement in any project. The DATAcc toolkit helps to ensure we are considering the critical points of the process.” Katrina YamazakiPrincipal Investigator and Senior Scientist, CHC Previous Next Case 1 | Case 2 | Case 3 | Case 4
The Problem
The CHC team that focused on community-based COVID-19 vaccination efforts in vulnerable communities wanted to understand best practices for outreach and engagement of this population.
The Resources
The CHC team leveraged DATAcc resources, specifically the Guide for Community Partnerships and Guide for Inclusive Engagement.
The guides helped CHC:
- Understand partners’ key needs better
- Create long-term plans for engagement, rather than single transactional moments
- Engage in trust building with key stakeholders
- Remain consistent with follow throughs
The Impact
- DATAcc helped shifted CHC’s focus from short-term wins to long-term engagement and helped the organization develop an enduring strategy, despite the challenges of the pandemic.
- The engagement tools helped CHC better engage its typical partners (such as local health departments and community-based organizations) and broaden its reach to new partners.
- New partners – including those most skeptical and reluctant to receive a vaccine – were successfully engaged by partnering with trusted community members (such as park workers, aids, and teachers).
The Problem
- The CHC team was looking to expand the eligibility for inclusion to non-patients for a AoURP.
- CHC needed tools to inform their outreach and engagement of the non-patient populations.
The Resources
- The CHC team leveraged DATAcc resources, specifically the Guide for Community Partnerships and Guide for Inclusive Engagement, to help plan engagement with community-based organizations.
- CHC incorporated guidance from the Inclusive Deployment Checklist to ensure they were thinking of the needs of members of the community and not just their organization’s needs.
The Impact
- CHC achieved greater patient-centricity by using DATAcc resources. Although the community members are not patients, they will be participants in the research study, and it is necessary to understand what matters to them most and how to engage in a participant-centric way.
- As CHC expands its outreach for inclusion in its research, it wants to reach historically underrepresented populations in biomedical research. DATAcc helped them understand the community’s needs and how to build trusting, long-term partnerships.
The Problem
The CHC team wanted to ensure that its informed consent was appropriately geared toward the intended population.
The Resources
- The CHC leveraged several DATAcc resources including the Workbook for Inclusive Deployment, Inclusive Deployment Plan Worksheet, Digital Readiness Workflow, and Informed Consent — Considerations for Inclusivity.
- The Informed Consent resource provided CHC with a guide to ensure that the informed consent it received from its national partner was appropriate for the intended population.
- The tools also helped CHC consider how to support the participant’s engagement with the informed consent through the recommendation to include other family members (when and where appropriate) and to provide a clear way for participants to get in touch if any issues arise in the future.
The Impact
These tools greatly impacted the team’s training and understanding of the appropriate way to present and share the informed consent with participants, encouraging appropriate family engagement and re-contact information.
The Problem
The CHC team wanted to ensure that its communication strategy for engagement with potential and existing participants is transparent, appropriate, and inclusive.
The Resources
- The CHC leveraged several DATAcc resources including the Workbook for Inclusive Deployment, Inclusive Deployment Plan Worksheet, Inclusive Communications Guide, and Digital Readiness Workflow to help inform CHC’s communications strategy.
- The organization leveraged the key elements of the tool’s recommendations, including utilizing a clear, concise message; having the appropriate reading level, including visual aids; and avoiding jargon to be more effective in its outreach, engagement, and retention work with participants and community members.
The Impact
- The area of greatest impact was the team training – utilizing this guide helped the CHC team have clear direction on how to engage with participants at every stage and provided CHC managers with very clear training guidelines for their team members, with a focus on inclusivity and participant-centered design.
- The tool was also impactful because it is accessible and can be put into use immediately.
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