Enabling Advocacy 2: Care Coordination and Community Inclusion

• In Event: The Community Health Worker (CHW) Initiative: Responsive Engagement, Community Capacity and Emergent Health

Abstract

Care coordination across the health care system has the potential to generate large savings for the health care system as a whole. Vulnerable populations are particularly likely to lack coordinated care and suffer from its absence, but are also likely to distrust the system and its representatives. A network that builds its advocacy from a commitment to community inclusion provides a positive reason for trust, and a context for understanding that the care coordination isn’t simply about saving the system money. The CHW’s job is not to ensure that “the poor people stand in the poor people line,” but to count the health outcome of every individual as part of the meaning of the community’s health. The technology is not dedicated to dividing the health encounter into as many fee for service transactions as possible, but is tuned toward mutual flourishing.

Author

• Donaji Stelzig, University of Houston, Honors College