In a presentation at the 2024 McKesson ideaShare conference, Katherine Bass, PharmD, pharmacy owner at San Joaquin Drug Inc, said community health workers (CHWs) play a vital role in promoting health equity and addressing disparities within their communities.
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The American Public Health Association defines CHWs as frontline public health workers who are trusted members of or have an exceptional understanding of the community the pharmacy serves. CHWs' trusting relationships with community members allow the workers to serve as liaisons between health and social services, ultimately improving the quality and delivery of care.
“They are [CHWs] “They provide a wide range of services including community outreach, home visiting, health education, counseling, care management and coordination. They work with health and social service providers and are really advocates for patients,” Bass said.
The CHW role is closely intertwined with health equity and social determinants of health (SDOH) in that it focuses on historical and contemporary injustices and eliminates preventable health disparities and inequities.
Bass noted that CDC Healthy People 2030 sets data-driven national goals in five areas of SDOH: health care access and quality, education access and quality, social and community conditions, economic stability, and neighborhoods and built environment. She highlighted that within these focus areas, pharmacies and CHWs can ably support the first key area: health care access and quality.
Bass highlighted the winning formula of aligning CHWs with health equity and SDOH, noting that CHWs connect community patients to local resources, which leads to improvements in SDOH and leads to true health equity.
However, each state has different requirements and often requires CHWs to complete an accredited training program before they can hire CHWs in a pharmacy. To enter the profession, CHWs need at least a high school diploma, although some employers prefer to hire candidates with higher education.
” [CHWs] Typically, you will receive training on the job. You will learn about topics that will be useful to your job, such as communication styles, outreach, advocacy methods, and legal and ethical issues. Some CHWs participate in apprenticeships or other structured programs that provide extensive education and opportunities for practical experience. This makes up a large portion of a social worker's job. [it can be] “It's a little different than what we do in a pharmacy,” Bass said.
When selecting CHWs for your pharmacy staff, it's important that they are connected to the communities the pharmacy serves to better support patients. Once a CHW is hired, the pharmacist's role is to enhance the CHW's work. Bass says this can be achieved by listening and understanding, encouraging autonomy, identifying opportunities for growth and learning, providing constructive feedback and realistic expectations, being involved in key decisions, and being kind and leading by example.
As the role of CHWs expands and SDOH continues to grow, Bass noted that significant funding is being put into establishing these services.
“COVID-19 has not only highlighted the magnitude of inequities in our health care system, but I think it's also made a lot of people realize that pharmacists are one of the few already addressing those inequities. We're already in rural areas. We're already reaching these patients. I think it's shining a lot of light on pharmacists, so I think this is a great area to be in.” [Pharmacists] “Pharmacies are already doing this. I can't think of a pharmacy that isn't telling people about food banks or talking to them about medical conditions. We're doing these things and I think it's time we get paid for it,” Bass said.
References Bass K. Closing the gap and cultivating health equity: The role of community pharmacy. Presented at: McKesson ideaShare, June 23-26, 2024, New Orleans, LA.
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