Comparative Effectiveness Research to Improve the Health of Sexual and Gender Minority Patients Through Cultural Competence and Skill Training of Community Health Center Providers and Non-clinical Staff

Overview

The primary goal of this PCORI proposal is to evaluate the impact of enhanced provider and clinical staff training to address the health disparities of SGM CHC patients to ultimately improve their health outcomes because CHCs are a key part of the U.S. health care delivery system for underserved populations. The current application proposes to test an intervention designed to understand how CHCs, including front line staff and safety net clinical providers, can identify and provide optimal care for their SGM patients, and will determine whether enhanced training of CHC staff in best practices for the provision of primary care for SGM patients will improve their clinical outcomes. The time is right for routinization of SOGI measures in EHRs and evaluation of the optimal methods to train primary care providers in the best practices for the care of SGM patients.

This project will work with 12 community health centers across the country that are part of and extended from the HRSA-established Community Health Applied Research Network (CHARN) to determine the optimal way to train CHC staff in the collection of SOGI data, and will evaluate the impact of enhanced SOGI data collection on health outcomes for LGBT patients. The project will build on more than six years of collaborations of a network of safety-net CHCs, including patient investigators from the inception of the project, with a plan for ongoing local patient engagement. Aim 1: Conduct interviews with patient and clinical stakeholders regarding how SOGI data are being used to inform patient care, and how they feel SOGI data should best be collected and utilized. Aim 2: Educate providers in culturally competent patient-centered care with sexual and gender minority populations. Aim 3: Compare the effect of a SOGI educational training program to usual practice on SOGI documentation rates and appropriate screening rates for LGBT patients. The project will determine the optimal way to train CHC staff in the collection of SOGI data, and will evaluate the impact of enhanced SOGI data collection on health outcomes for LGBT patients. The project team proposes a study design that is commonly employed to examine changes in outcomes (e.g., screening rates) across time, comparing rates prior to and after the educational training intervention. The project will measure the impact of changes to practice and to patient outcomes (e.g., depression screening, appropriate use of mammography and HPV screening for lesbians and transgender women), as well as patient satisfaction. Results of this study would be the first of their kind to evaluate the impact of a series of educational programs on the healthcare outcomes of LGBT patients and could provide a replicable patient-centered model for routinely collecting and documenting sexual and gender minority information at CHCs and improving provider competence in care. Ultimately, the study has strong potential for improving the quality of care for sexual and gender minorities and reducing health disparities.