Collaborative Health Education and Access Events Offer No-Cost Screenings and Navigation Services To Connect Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Individuals With Medical Homes Offering Culturally Competent Care | AHRQ Health Care Innovations Exchange

Collaborative Health Education and Access Events Offer No-Cost Screenings and Navigation Services To Connect Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Individuals With Medical Homes Offering Culturally Competent Care | AHRQ Health Care Innovations Exchange

Collaborative Health Education and Access Events Offer No-Cost Screenings and Navigation Services To Connect Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Individuals With Medical Homes Offering Culturally Competent Care

Snapshot

Summary

Lesbian Health Initiative of Houston, Inc., creates a gateway to medical homes for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender women and transgender men through a program that combines culturally competent outreach, education, screening, and patient navigation. The organization and its partners use various media and other means to promote health screening events aimed at increasing access to Papanicolaou tests, clinical breast exams, mammography, body and skin exams, and other procedures that these individuals often do not receive. During the preregistration process and at the events, patient navigators connect these women and men to a medical home that can provide ongoing preventive care and treatment. Various partners, including volunteers, provider organizations, and other community-based organizations, assist with these events, with all partners receiving cultural competency training on outreach and communication methods that remove barriers to care for this population. The program has enhanced access to culturally competent screening and medical care for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals, especially racial and ethnic minorities.

Evidence Rating(What is this?)

Suggestive: The evidence consists of post-implementation trends in the number of attendees, screenings, and connections to medical homes at Lesbian Health Initiative–sponsored health fairs, along with a survey of 47 attendees screened at one health fair about whether they received their results and whether those who needed additional care scheduled a followup appointment.

Date First Implemented

2011

Lesbian Health Initiative historically offered health screening events and in 2011 implemented a more organized, collaborative, and comprehensive approach that uses these events to connect people with ongoing care.