Projects per year
Abstract
Context: Recent arrivals from refugee backgrounds face significant language barriers in accessing quality primary care in Australia. Consequently, refugees may miss out on receiving care that comprehensively addresses their health and social needs.
Objective: Can an outreach practice facilitation intervention effectively address barriers and facilitators to assessment and recording of language needs and interpreting service use for refugee-background patients in Australian primary care?
Study Design: Mixed qualitative and qualitative evaluation of a pragmatic stepped wedge cluster randomized controlled trial of outreach facilitation in primary care.
Setting. Primary care practice in three urban regions of high refugee resettlement in Australia.
Participants: 55 primary care practitioners (PCPs) in 31 practices.
Intervention: Trained facilitators made three visits to practices over 6 months to help practice teams to improve systems and routines for refugee care.
Results: 78% of the PCPs in this study were born overseas and 98% spoke at least one language other than English. Patient, provider and practice barriers influenced PCPs ability to assess the language needs of refugee patients and to engage interpreters. In response to facilitation, practices implemented staff training, new procedures and made aids and resources available to increase use of credentialed interpreters. After the intervention, staff confidence in recording the need for and arranging interpreters improved by 25%. 71% of practices reported that the intervention changed the ways in which they identified refugee patients' need for and arranged interpreters for these patients. There was no significant impact on provider attitudes with some continuing to use bilingual staff or even family and friends to translate during encounters (contrary to Australian guidelines).
Conclusions: Although most of the GPs in the study were bilingual, significant language barriers remained for refugee background patients accessing quality primary care. The facilitation intervention helped practices implementing changes to improve the recording of the need for and use of interpreters. However, some provider attitudes and practices remained and will need to be addressed through other strategies.
Upon completion of this session, participants should be able to:
Describe the language barriers to accessing primary care by recently arrived refugees
Describe the strategies used to help practices to better meet the language needs refugees in primary care in the OPTIMISE study
Evaluate the impacts of these strategies on practice routine and confidence by practitioners in the use of interpreters.
Objective: Can an outreach practice facilitation intervention effectively address barriers and facilitators to assessment and recording of language needs and interpreting service use for refugee-background patients in Australian primary care?
Study Design: Mixed qualitative and qualitative evaluation of a pragmatic stepped wedge cluster randomized controlled trial of outreach facilitation in primary care.
Setting. Primary care practice in three urban regions of high refugee resettlement in Australia.
Participants: 55 primary care practitioners (PCPs) in 31 practices.
Intervention: Trained facilitators made three visits to practices over 6 months to help practice teams to improve systems and routines for refugee care.
Results: 78% of the PCPs in this study were born overseas and 98% spoke at least one language other than English. Patient, provider and practice barriers influenced PCPs ability to assess the language needs of refugee patients and to engage interpreters. In response to facilitation, practices implemented staff training, new procedures and made aids and resources available to increase use of credentialed interpreters. After the intervention, staff confidence in recording the need for and arranging interpreters improved by 25%. 71% of practices reported that the intervention changed the ways in which they identified refugee patients' need for and arranged interpreters for these patients. There was no significant impact on provider attitudes with some continuing to use bilingual staff or even family and friends to translate during encounters (contrary to Australian guidelines).
Conclusions: Although most of the GPs in the study were bilingual, significant language barriers remained for refugee background patients accessing quality primary care. The facilitation intervention helped practices implementing changes to improve the recording of the need for and use of interpreters. However, some provider attitudes and practices remained and will need to be addressed through other strategies.
Upon completion of this session, participants should be able to:
Describe the language barriers to accessing primary care by recently arrived refugees
Describe the strategies used to help practices to better meet the language needs refugees in primary care in the OPTIMISE study
Evaluate the impacts of these strategies on practice routine and confidence by practitioners in the use of interpreters.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Number of pages | 1 |
| Publication status | Published - 20 Nov 2020 |
| Event | North American Primary Care Research Group Annual Meeting 2020 - Virtual Duration: 20 Nov 2020 → 24 Nov 2020 Conference number: 48th https://www.napcrg.org/conferences/annual/na-pastconferences/2020/#:~:text=NAPCRG%2048th%20Annual%20Meeting,including%20our%20Plenary%20Speaker%20presentations! https://napcrg.org/conferences/annualpastmeetingarchives/ |
Conference
| Conference | North American Primary Care Research Group Annual Meeting 2020 |
|---|---|
| Abbreviated title | NAPCRD 2020 |
| Period | 20/11/20 → 24/11/20 |
| Internet address |
Access to Document
Projects
- 1 Finished
-
The OPTIMISE project: Collaborative improvement of primary health care delivery to the Australian refugee community
Russell, G., Advocat, J., Cheng, I., Enticott, J., Harris, M. F., Hogg, W., Lewis, V. J., Meadows, G., Pottie, K. & Teede, H.
1/02/16 → 30/09/20
Project: Research