While member engagement is challenging, it can be one of the most rewarding aspects of being a community health improvement coordinator – to help members participate in meaningful policy decisions for their CCOs. These decisions are making a real impact for their members.
“Member engagement is one of the things I love best,” said Charlotte Dudley. But it’s not always easy in frontier Oregon.
As community health improvement coordinator for Greater Oregon Behavioral Health, Dudley works closely with the Eastern Oregon Coordinated Care Organization (CCO) community advisory councils (CACs). These councils bring the consumer voice into local health system transformation, with a focus on preventive care and population health.
While many CCOs serve two or three counties, Eastern Oregon CCO is unique in that it serves twelve – about half the state. “We have twelve advisory councils and they’re very local… we very much value our current members, but it’s been a challenge to get as many folks involved as we like,” Dudley said. CCOs need diverse perspectives to help understand how to best serve their communities.
To advance this CAC member engagement work, Dudley has participated in several opportunities through the Oregon Health Authority Transformation Center. For example, her CCO was connected to consultant Liz Baxter through the Technical Assistance Bank, which allows CCOs to request help from outside experts to give their health system transformation efforts a boost.
“Liz helped us take a step back,” said Dudley, “to think about relationships and how to ask engaging questions” to keep advisory council members involved.
Dudley also uses a CAC 101 presentation to orient new members. The presentation includes an overview of CCOs and Oregon’s health system transformation and will soon be available in Spanish.
Currently, Dudley is on a statewide committee to plan an event for CAC leaders to share strategies for recruiting and engaging CAC members, which is part of the Transformation Center’s efforts to provide more focused support to CCOs and CACs. To have meaningful conversations about systems change and barriers, it’s essential to have consumer voices at the table.
“The Transformation Center provides a nice link for Eastern Oregon CCO members and local CAC members to be heard at the state level,” said Dudley. “Sometimes we feel isolated out
here. I love when we can be more collective and remember that this is a local project, a regional project, and it’s also statewide. The Transformation Center can provide that collective way to think about health care. The support and encouragement are really valuable.”
One way CAC members in Eastern Oregon are making a real difference is by guiding their CCO’s local transformation projects. For example, Union County CAC members identified the lack of transportation as an issue in their rural community and helped implement a project to provide transportation to same-day health care appointments and pharmacy deliveries, leading to fewer missed appointments and fewer unnecessary trips to the emergency room.
