Practice Title: Cook County Department of Public Health Contact Tracing Initiative Care Resource Coordination Team
Department: Cook County Department of Public Health
Size: Large (Population of 500,000+ people)
State: Illinois
Summary of Practice:
CCDPH serves the North, West and Southern suburbs surrounding the City of Chicago. The primary goal of CCDPH is to optimize and achieve health equity for all living within our jurisdiction. Population: 2.5 million living within 125 municipalities over a 700-mile square area.
As a part of the COVID-19 pandemic strategic plan, over 200 Contact Tracers were hired to interview patients, provide information regarding proper isolation/quarantine processes and identify resources needed to isolate safely. CCDPH CTI maximized existing Care Coordination Teams to provide resources to patients in need. With the huge rise in the number of cases, it soon became apparent that the existing processes could not meet the needs of the patients. CCDPH pivoted and created an independent Contact Tracing Initiative (CTI) Care Resource Coordination (CRC) Team.
The CTI CRC Team was created to serve all patients within the CCDPH demographic area who truly identified a need to safely isolate/quarantine. As the pandemic progressed, it was quickly identified that issues such as food insecurity and Mental/Emotional Health needs were exacerbated. The goal was to identify and address immediate needs, but to also connect patients with ongoing resources and support. An additional, unplanned, but much needed benefit to the program was to further build trust in the Public Health System by meeting the needs of the patients and one on one communication.
The new CTI CRC Team, consisting of 8 members, were chosen from the existing pool of Contact Tracers. They were identified based on their communication skills, ability to critically think and a willingness to serve patients throughout the CCDPH area. Several members were also Bilingual (Arabic, Polish and Spanish-speaking). Trainings were held to educate the new CRC Team members, but to also share the new process with the entire CTI Team of over 200 Contact Tracers and Supervisors. The process was implemented within a month of inception. The “new” CTI CRC has been consistently able to rapidly address patient resource requests. Because of the team’s hard work, positive outcomes have been identified:
- Needs of the patients have been met and met quickly, developing a greater degree of trust within the CCDPH community.
- Contact Tracers, who had lost faith in the CRC process, were more willing to offer resources to those truly in need, as they knew that the request would be responded to in a timely manner.
Initial Results: From June to December 2021: The CTI CRC addressed all 5249 requests in less than 42 hours and was able to close 99% of the requests, significantly surpassing the State of Illinois goal to address requests within 48 hours.
Cook County Department of Public Health Contact Tracing Initiative Care Resource Coordination Team
Category
Epidemiology