The role of Community Health Navigators in the creation of plans to support patients with chronic conditions: A sub study of the ENCOMPASS trial
Date
2022-07-05
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Abstract
Background: Patients with chronic conditions implement care plans in the community but barriers to care, such as financial constraints, may hinder their abilities to do so. Support from patient navigators has been shown to improve health disparities associated with socioeconomic barriers and increase patient adherence with care plans. However, the role of patient navigators in providing individualized support to address unique patient needs is not well defined in the literature. The ENhancing COMmunity health through Patient navigation, Advocacy and Social Support (ENCOMPASS) research program in Calgary is testing a patient navigation program to address patient barriers and build self-efficacy. Non-clinically trained Community Health Navigators (CHNs) are paired with patients diagnosed with two or more (of a set of six) common chronic conditions and provide support by helping patients set and meet priorities. Purpose: To explore if and how CHNs tailor their plans of support to address patient social and/or health-related needs in the ENCOMPASS program of research. Methods: A multimethod qualitative description approach was used. Case notes completed by CHNs documenting information on patient barriers, priorities, and the CHN’s support plan for each patient priority were analyzed. Two reviewers subjectively assessed Priority-CHN plans to determine the appropriateness of the plan. Patient priorities and CHN plans of support were coded separately using thematic codebook analysis, with codes being subsequently linked and quantitized to show percent correlation. Descriptive statistics was used to summarize findings. Results: 86 patients were included in the analysis. A total of 179 patient priorities were evaluated and 157 priorities (88%) were assessed as having CHN support plans that had a reasonable link to addressing the priority. The strongest correlations between a priority and support plan were found for: medication adherence and CHN verifying adherence to care plan (100%); transportation and CHN facilitating transportation (90%); increasing knowledge about medical information and CHN gathering and sharing information (60%). Conclusion: CHNs planned diverse and appropriate supports to help address patient priorities. Future work should consider linking the supports provided by CHNs during the intervention to patient priorities and barriers to further understand how CHNs provide tailored support.
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Patient navigation, Barriers to care, Patient navigators, Primary care, Community Health Navigators, Multiple chronic conditions, Chronic disease management
Citation
Leong, M. (2022). The role of Community Health Navigators in the creation of plans to support patients with chronic conditions: A sub study of the ENCOMPASS trial (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.