The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #66232

Elliott Garrett, MSW¹, Bart Perkey, MSW¹, Celia Larson, PhD², and Erika Shambaugh, MA². (1) Bureau of Community Assessment and Health Promotion, Metropolitan Nashville Health Department, 311 23rd Avenue North, Nashville, TN 37203, 615-340-5655, Elliott_Garrett@mhd.nashville.org, (2) Division of Research and Evaluation, Metropolitan Nashville Davidson County Health Department, 311 23rd Avenue North, Nashville, TN 37203

Bridges to Care is a community based program in Nashville, TN, created to address health care access barriers by providing uninsured persons with a medical home. The Bridges to Care program began enrolling members in February of 2002. A major goal of the program was to monitor the care of the participants to achieve greater access to care for the uninsured, through which the program would be evaluated and changes would be implemented, if needed. The purpose of this study was to examine the successes and barriers in monitoring the care of uninsured persons enrolled in the Bridges to Care program. This paper utilizes the results and future recommendations of four surveys that assessed the effectiveness of Bridges to Care: Patient Satisfaction, Provider Satisfaction, Resident Awareness, and Provider Awareness. The issues related to the barriers of this comprehensive system of care for the uninsured that will be discussed are a) the information campaign delivered to the target population; b) the lack of complete information obtained from Hospitals involved; and c) the communication gap. The successes that will be presented will include a) number of uninsured persons enrolled; and b) provider and patient satisfaction with various aspects of the program. The presentation will discuss the evaluation of these issues and the application of strategies to address them.

Learning Objectives:

• 1) Identify some challenges in delivering correct information to target populations.
• 2) Describe strategies to overcome challenges in hospital participation when it comes to collecting information for monitoring.
• 3) Describe how a gap in communication can influence monitoring the care of the uninsured.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.