Page 16 - Delaware Medical Journal - December 2017
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TABLE 1: Hospital-based Peer Support Marketing and Engagement Strategies
THEME AREAS
ACTION STEPS
Promotion Materials
Creation of fliers and posters with current contact information that are displayed at the various nursing stations.
Pens/business cards with your program’s name and contact phone number to hand out to staff and patients.
Engagement with Hospital Staff
Make your presence known. As you walk around, introduce yourself and provide business cards. “Hi, I am Mark. Are you aware of the Engagement Specialist Pro- gram?” Have a short elevator speech ready.
Ensure peer consults are simple and can be integrated into clinical staff work flow.
Share success stories. This helps create buy-in from staff and assists with compassion fatigue. It’s really important to do this so hospital staff understands how peer support works.
Showing Treatment Team Value
Follow up with the clinical staff about key points regarding the engagement. This is really important to do — meet with the clinician(s) first and after engaging with the patient.
Attendance at clinical rounds, which allows for face time with the clinical team and ability to provide input about patient care.
Their job was to engage and assist patients who present with substance use-related conditions.
The three PNs, along with a peer supervisor and a project manager, attended the two-day training in Delaware. The core components of this training included how people can engage with patients and other hospital staff, assess their needs, and coordinate appropriate aftercare treatment. In addition to the clinical component, sustainability were also highlighted.
Following the training, learning collaborative calls were scheduled between AHCI and related partners for additional assistance as
the PNs in Allegheny County were embedded in each hospital setting and beginning to engage patients. To increase the chances of success, the collaboration with Project Engage was instrumental in highlighting a number of challenges to expect upon implementation. These challenges included: 1) hospital staff not fully understanding peer support, the role of a peer, and how to utilize the peer; 2) the integration of peers with other established behavioral health staff and resources; 3) overall SUD education and awareness among non- people with active substance use in a hospital setting.
In preparation of these challenges, a number of different topics were discussed. These included, but were not limited to, shifting hospital culture to integrate peer recovery supports in treatment planning; documentation of peer involvement in the electronic medical record; providing peer support education to medical staff; and
building a sustainable, hospital-based peer support model. Several key marketing and engagement strategies were also shared and are highlighted in Table 1.
At the conclusion of the formal collaboration, several people from Pittsburgh shared their thoughts:
I believe [the Project Engage training] was a good starting point to see how they got up and going, ran their operation. (Dana, Peer Navigator)
The amount of time we spent [with Project Engage] was perfect in terms of education and setting the foundation for our [Peer Navigator] project. The individual and diverse shadowing experiences were invaluable to observe each of the [Engagement Specialists’] approach to their patient engagements. (David, Peer Navigator)
The training really gave us the chance to see some of the things that we would be up against, as well as the great potential to help people. I think the whole experience gave us realistic expectations. (Keirston, Peer Supervisor)
Previous research on learning collaboratives in the health care industry, such as this, have highlighted positive outcomes.11
Early evidence from the Allegheny County hospital facilities surveys suggests hospitals are adopting the peer-driven approach, known as the Peer Navigator Program, incorporating it into
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Del Med J | December 2017 | Vol. 89 | No. 12
