School of Medicine and Health Sciences Poster Presentations
Creating a Multidisciplinary and Patient Centered Referral Model at the Bridge to Care Clinic
Poster Number
264
Document Type
Poster
Status
Medical Student
Abstract Category
Health Services
Keywords
Healing Clinic, Community Health, Patient Navigator
Publication Date
Spring 2018
Abstract
Linking patients to referral resources is an integral part of all community clinics. In a Student Run Free Clinic, this service is even more essential and oftentimes more difficult. Volunteer turnover makes continuity difficult and referral sites are constantly in flux. Determining what resources, if any, patients are eligible for is a constant battle. At the Bridge to Care Clinic, we use the Patient Navigator Program to link patients to insurance. Historically, all patients who needed a referral were referred to the Patient Navigator Program regardless of the nature of the referral. A Patient Navigator would then work with the patient to connect them to a referral site. This process was often difficult to track and often unsuccessful at providing optimum care.
Objective:
This project aimed to delineate different types of referrals that were sent to the Patient Navigator Program, better educate volunteers on the referral context at the clinic, and provide other resources that would make our care more patient centered.
Methods:
We piloted using Masters in Public Health students as Patient Navigators and worked to better organize the resources we had in a flow chart. We also created categories of education resources that volunteers could distribute to patients when appropriate.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Open Access
1
Creating a Multidisciplinary and Patient Centered Referral Model at the Bridge to Care Clinic
Linking patients to referral resources is an integral part of all community clinics. In a Student Run Free Clinic, this service is even more essential and oftentimes more difficult. Volunteer turnover makes continuity difficult and referral sites are constantly in flux. Determining what resources, if any, patients are eligible for is a constant battle. At the Bridge to Care Clinic, we use the Patient Navigator Program to link patients to insurance. Historically, all patients who needed a referral were referred to the Patient Navigator Program regardless of the nature of the referral. A Patient Navigator would then work with the patient to connect them to a referral site. This process was often difficult to track and often unsuccessful at providing optimum care.
Objective:
This project aimed to delineate different types of referrals that were sent to the Patient Navigator Program, better educate volunteers on the referral context at the clinic, and provide other resources that would make our care more patient centered.
Methods:
We piloted using Masters in Public Health students as Patient Navigators and worked to better organize the resources we had in a flow chart. We also created categories of education resources that volunteers could distribute to patients when appropriate.