Patient navigators could be effective in closing racial disparities in primary care access, according to new data, with the healthcare professionals able to connect more Hispanic patients than if patients went at it alone. The report, published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, particularly showed that Hispanic patients working with a…
Pairing community health workers with adult inpatients under accountable care organization insurance coverage reduced readmissions and missed appointments with outpatient providers during the first 30 days of discharge, according to a recently published Massachusetts General Hospital study. While these trends were greater among patients who were discharged to short-term rehabilitation, a subgroup analysis found that…
Long discussed, the concept of community health workers has rarely been evaluated in a formal way in terms of its potential effectiveness in communities. Now, a team of healthcare researchers has executed a study on the subject, which was published in the February issue of Health Affairs. The published article, entitled “Evidence-Based Community Health Worker Program Addresses…
The transition to value-based care has expanded the definition of patient wellness to include both physical and social health. As patient care stretches into the community, the healthcare workforce begins to center on the community health worker. Community health workers “are frontline public health workers who have a close understanding of the community they serve,”…