Community engagement is essential to bringing hospice care to populations that historically have been underserved, according to Karen Davis-Pritchett, vice president of access and inclusion at Empath Health.
More than 80% of Medicare hospice patients in 2018 were Caucasian, according to the National Hospice and Palliative Organization (NHPCO), while African American, Asian and Hispanic patients made up less than 20% of the remaining beneficiaries that year.
In addition to lower rates of overall utilization, hospice patients who are members of minority communities are more likely to leave hospice, be admitted to the hospital, or visit the emergency department, research has found.
Hospice News spoke with Davis-Pritchett about community engagement strategies that can help providers reach more of these underserved populations.
How would you define community engagement? It seems like something that would go beyond traditional marketing?
I would define this as intentional outreach and engagement with our communities with regards to finding out what their needs are, and the ways that we can partner with other organizations that are like-minded and have the same mission and vision. How do we create collaboration to really make a difference within those communities that we have the privilege of serving?
It is beyond a brochure or a resource table at a community fair. It is really being able to cultivate relationships, cultivate trust. That is true community engagement.
Photo courtesy of Empath Health
How has the pandemic affected providers’ ability to engage with their communities?
The pandemic has caused barriers. Of course, we are used to engaging face-to-face with our community partners. We need to be innovative. Using technology is very important. Using platforms such as Zoom allows us to not only engage with them, but to check in with them from a humanity standpoint, to see how they are doing.
Because the pandemic has been exhaustive, it’s brought unique challenges. It’s important for all of us to find ways to connect and to be really intentional about connecting with our community and our community partners.
Can you talk about what some of the benefits are to the community for engaging with the hospice providers in their area?
It provides education, because we want our community members to be informed and to be able to make decisions based on correct information. We want them to be able to make informed decisions for themselves or their loved ones — from a space of knowledge and not from a space of myths.
It’s important that we engage with them to cultivate trust. They may have had an experience with care providers or other health care sectors in which they may have felt discriminated against. They may not have received culturally responsive or culturally competent care.
When we engage with our communities, we have an opportunity to build a relationship and cultivate trust, so that they know if we have the privilege of taking care of them at end-of-life or taking care of a family member or a parishioner of theirs, we are going to provide the very best care. We’re going to be culturally responsive as we provide that support to the patient, as well with the caregiver.
What were some of the specific strategies that your organization is pursuing to engage with communities and particularly among underserved populations?
When we talk about the pandemic, we know that our communities of color unfortunately have been deeply affected because of health care disparities. Empath Health has been very intentional about partnering with our community organizations to provide a platform where our people can get information about the vaccines and the coronavirus.
We’ve been able to leverage our physicians to participate in those community presentations along with public service announcements. We’ve also used our community partnership specialists to be there with drive-through events to honor our Vietnam veterans. We’ve used our volunteers and our community partners specialists as our liaisons for just some emotional, uplifting and encouraging support by doing chalk art with some of our nursing home and long term care facilities, as well as across our campuses.
We know that our PACE participants could be isolated and disengaged during this time. Our PACE staff created socialization kits for our participants to reduce that isolation and to keep them engaged.
We have strong relationships and dedicated community partnership specialists. They are consistently engaged with underserved communities, such as the African American community, our Hispanic community, our veterans, our Jewish community, and LGBTQ+. That is really foundational to our organization.
I believe that those relationships became stronger because we demonstrated that in a time of need that we’re going to still be there. The pandemic is an unprecedented time that we’re still living through and learning from. Everyone is experiencing this moment together. In health care, we are all trying to figure out how to keep our staff safe, ensure that we have PPE, and that we are being mindful of the mental health and wellness of our staff.
In the midst of all of that, it could be really easy to take our focus off of our communities. Instead, we have recognized that they need us now more than ever. We could be internally focused and ensure that our staff members have what they need, but also to check in with our community partners and ensure that we can share the resources that we have.
Can you talk a little bit about who your community partners are? What kinds of organizations do you work with?
We work with organizations that are social organizations. They may be civic organizations or other health care organizations.
We partner with the Hispanic Leadership Council, Gulf Coast Leadership Councel, Jewish Family Services, veteran’s organizations, the National Council of Negro Women, Inc., and the Alzheimer’s Association. We have a very diverse group of community partners.
It’s important that we build those relationships with various community partners, because they all serve a particular sector of the community. As a health care provider, we want to ensure that we are partnering with those mission-aligned organizations to increase our reach and to increase our presence.
What are some of the qualities you look for when you’re choosing a community partner?
We want to work with partners that don’t make assumptions about any particular community. We want to know that they respect the community members and the historical experiences of that community.
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