WNC Health Network & COVID-19

As our region of western North Carolina fights against COVID-19, WNC Health Network is donating our skills and expertise around data, convening, and facilitation to supporting regional pandemic response strategy conversations, bringing together public health communicators, as well as supporting ongoing regional conversations around food insecurity and food systems.

To learn more about what is happening in local communities around our region, like and follow WNC Health Network and WNC health departments and hospitals on Facebook – click here for direct links.

Our team has love and pride for our region and all of its people, and we feel confident that Western North Carolina’s long history of innovation and collaboration will help see us through this time – together.

Please contact us if you have additional ideas for ways we can support your efforts.

Virtual Services & Support for Community Health Improvement

In these unprecedented times, many of us may be feeling overwhelmed or at a loss for how—or even IF—we can continue to move our community health improvement work forward. It can feel daunting to determine how to maintain momentum with community coalitions, grantees, and partners in this new all-virtual world. Here are some tips and resources to support you and your community health improvement partners to adapt and continue your work in the midst of uncertainty and flux.

Tools to Support Strategy Work
This deceptively simple “Crisis Triage Tool” from the Center for Community Investment has been a useful way for coalitions, agencies, or action teams to “take stock” of strategies and how the current crisis will impact strategic direction. Links to the blank template, instructions for completing this with your team, and a sample, completed tool are included at the end of the article: https://centerforcommunityinvestment.org/blog/reimagining-strategy-context-covid-19-crisis-triage-tool

Tools to Facilitate Virtual Collaborative Work
It is possible to design and lead effective, engaging, and meaningful virtual meetings that can help move your collective work forward – it just takes a bit more planning and elbow grease to make it happen. We recommend reading this article from Digital Visual Facilitation with tips for translating your in-person meeting to a virtual setting, as a starting point.

At WNC Health Network, we are adapting our collaborative work and support to continue to be available, effective and meaningful at-a-distance. From leading virtual collaborative processes, to co-developing and implementing at-a-distance local data collection methodologies, to developing engaging, online Results-Based Accountability™ (RBA) training and coaching, to supporting access to our regional health data and providing strategic support for health communications efforts, we are committed to continuing to contribute to the important work that carries on in the midst of these unprecedented times.

If you would like to learn more about how we can support your community health work, contact us.

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Western NC’s “Bug Club”

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WNC Health Network creates healthy and thriving communities by helping hospitals collaborate outside of their walls. And while community health assessments are a more public-facing way that we support this connectivity, Bug Club is another great way that hospitals work alongside each other in our region in the best interest of all of our residents.

What is now known as Bug Club was started  in the 1980s by Janice Brown as an informal gathering of infection prevention and microbiology professionals in western North Carolina (WNC). Early members included Alta Wells, Janice Brown, Ruby Connor, Ron Ferrigno, and others.

Sue Ferrigno – a medical technologist with a BS in medical technology and an MA in medical biology – joined in 1988. WNC Health Network recently spoke with Sue Ferrigno,  as well as current co-leaders Ivan Gowe and Corrianne Billings to learn more about the history of the Bug Club (housed under the umbrella of WNC Health Network since 2007), as well as why it’s so important.

How does Bug Club function?

The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) is a national organization with chapters in every state. NC is divided into 11 zones, and WNC has zones 1 & 2. Bug Club is the NC APIC meeting of those two zones.

We want to have a unified infection prevention program in WNC, so the community is receiving consistent messages. Bug Club is a place where we can bring up and share practices that we feel should be adopted regionally.

Representatives from hospitals and health departments in the region are invited, and about 15 people attend. We meet every other month, usually over lunch. We have time for new happenings, and for anyone who wants to share information they learned at recent conferences.  There’s usually a topic of conversation – for example, at the last meeting two people reviewed journal articles with the group. It was a controversial topic so it was good to hear the latest published information. There’s time for networking, which is very important. Sometimes people come primarily to meet other peers, to find out how others are doing things.

What is an example of how Bug Club helped unified infection prevention in the region?

When the antimicrobial hand soap, triclosan, first started being linked with safety risks we discussed it at Bug Club,

and hospitals stopped using hand soap that contained it.  In the high risk areas they use more potent hand soaps – so that’s good too. We try to aim for uniform practice.

How did Bug Club come to be part of WNC Health Network?

Bug Club Attendees, December 2012

In the mid-2000s the hospital CEOs part of WNC Health Network came to Bug Club and asked if we could give them comparable infection rates for their hospitals.

Infection prevention has to report their data to the CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network; they get every hospital’s data on infection, including surgical site infections, MRSA (Methicillin Resistant S. aureus) blood stream infections, catheter-related urinary tract infections, catheter related bloodstream infections, and Clostridioides difficile. Reportable conditions are benchmarked both state wide and nation-wide and are all compared based on the size and type of hospital. In 2009 that data started being reported through the state, so there was no longer a need to report back to the CEOs of the hospitals in WNC.

That was our first interaction with WNC Health Network – the request for our infection rate data. After that we had this relationship with the organization.

How do hospitals and public health agencies work together when it comes to infection prevention?

Open communication between hospitals and health departments is very important.

For example,  at the hospital we might get a call from a family member saying – my child’s classmate has meningitis – do we need to get an antibiotic? And we know that the child is at Mission. There are a lot of privacy HIPAA rules, but if someone has a communicable disease that’s reportable the hospital must report it to the health department to help prevent further spread of the disease.

Hospitals and public health agencies work together to prevent and control transmissible diseases in our communities. If a child has meningitis diagnosed at the hospital, that information is relayed to the local health department. They follow up with the school and the family to reduce the impact of that very contagious disease in the child’s community. Bug Club is one of the few places that hospital and public health based infection preventionists can meet to discuss their work, its challenges and how to continue to provide the best care to the communities we serve.

Sue, you’re retired now – why do you still take the time to participate in Bug Club?

I really enjoyed doing what I did in my career. I feel infection prevention does have a large effect on improving health care, and Bug Club is helping with that.

How can others get involved with or learn more about Bug Club?

Professionals responsible for infection prevention at their hospital or public health agency are welcome to Bug Club – to RSVP for an upcoming meeting contact meron.abebe@wnchn.org.

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“You Are the Experts in This” – Graham County Health Director Listens to Her Community

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Beth Booth, originally from the coast of NC, became health director of Graham County, NC in November, 2017. Since landing in her leadership role with Graham County Department of Public Health, she has led the agency in bringing back primary care and in streamlining services, working creatively to leverage auxiliary and support staff in the face of a rural nursing shortage.

Image by Nik Shuliahin

The health department is also strengthening their work in the community and has reestablished a previously dormant substance use coalition. In addition to Beth and Amber Williams, Health Educator at the health department, the coalition includes resource officers, principals, preachers, nonprofit leaders, the leader of Celebrate Recovery (a local faith-based recovery program), and the director of a local thrift store who is a minister and does work with substance use.

As Beth was getting the coalition back in action, she determined that she wanted to conduct a listening session (or focus group), with people in recovery to both help inform the community health assessment process, and to also avoid taking on issues not viewed as high priority by those most affected by substance abuse.

Beth and Amber worked with WNC Health Network before the listening session. “Support from WNC Health Network was crucial,” says Beth. “We attended their WNC Healthy Impact training on how to convene community listening sessions. Then they worked with us

Photo of Graham County by Patrick Williams, Ecocline Photography

one-on-one to develop the script and give us pointers, including how to pay attention to body language of people in the group, how to ask people to speak up without being obtrusive, and how to sit quietly and not overpower the group or sway them in any direction.”

Beth had built a relationship over the previous year with a team leader at Celebrate Recovery, and he was able to schedule an evening for Beth and Amber to come to meet with participants in the program. Beth and Amber arrived early so that they could participate in the sermon and group dinner prior to their session. “I didn’t just walk in during the middle of the sermon and disturb everything. Staying for the whole event is crucial for building mutual trust and respect,” says Beth.

Beth and Amber started their listening session by letting participants know that the session would be recorded, and how they were planning to use the information. When the session started they had six participants – by the time it ended they had about 10 in attendance.

“I told the participants – you are the experts in this. I want to know what you’ve experienced, how you got where you are, and  how you got yourself out,” says Beth. “At one point when our tape recorder stopped running the participants let us know that it had stopped and waited to continue talking until the recorder was running again. Oftentimes public health is afraid they’re going to offend someone by asking targeted questions, but it’s not a sensitive issue to them, it’s their life. They want you to hear what’s coming out of their mouth and to give a darn about what they think.”

The listening session participants gave Beth and Amber feedback on where to locate syringe drop boxes, and how to best structure youth prevention programming. They also spoke to the challenges posed by stigma: “The group told me that there are plenty of people who have trouble getting help because people don’t think they’re worth the help.” Eventually, the team leader had to come in and stop the lively session because it was past 9 pm.

Because of feedback and insights gained from the listening session, the health department is now working on reopening the domestic violence shelter that shut down in 2017. They are exploring what can be done to expand transitional housing, and to increase prevention for youth, including resiliency education in the schools. They are looking at starting a support group for adults in recovery that is not faith-based, as well a support group for children located in the schools.

The experience – in addition to holding listening sessions with other segments of the community – has driven home for Beth that there are still too many people who don’t realize what a huge problem substance misuse poses for their friends, family, and neighbors. Beth says: “That has been an awakening for me – I took it for granted that people knew we have a problem in our county, but when I present the data and the stories I’ve heard you can hear the murmur going through the room… they’re shocked. It has started coming down to community-wide education and bringing everyone to realize, yes – there’s a problem in the county. It might not touch you, but it exists.”

Beth Booth’s Thoughts on Successful Listening Sessions:

  • Be upfront when you go in to the listening session; know that participants are going to ask you what you plan to do with the information and that you will be held accountable for how you respond.
  • Don’t make assumptions; sit and listen with an open mind.
  • Don’t think that participants are going to be close-lipped. If you build relationships and mutual respect they will respond to your questions openly and generously.
  • Be honest about what you’re looking for: ‘I’m here for you and your opinion.’
  • Let the group know that they are the experts and that you’re looking to learn from them.
  • Take the time to sit through the entire session or event (provided that you have been invited into that space). Be respectful of the participants’ time and the time you’re taking from them.
  • Take the information given to you by the participants and understand that their story is valid data, as if you had asked a scientist.
  • When you acquire information from community members you must hear it and you must do something with it – you’re responsible for it.
  • Understand that the participants have just as much passion about the issue as public health does – probably even more passion.

If you are interested in learning how WNC Health Network could support you in conducting community listening sessions of your own, contact Emily Kujawa, Project Manager & Improvement Specialist (emily.kujawa@wnchn.org).

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