Truman Medical Centers

Project WISDOM: Wellness Integrated Services Directed to Older Mature Adults

According to the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, nearly 20% of adults aged 55 and older experience mental health disorders that are abnormal to the human aging process and could benefit from structured mental health care services. Yet, few older adults receive appropriate care for mental illness. Truman Medical Centers (TMC) created Project WISDOM (Wellness Integrated Services Directed to Older Mature Adults) to increase awareness of the mental health needs of older adults and provide easy access to those services. Project WISDOM was designed to improve access to and effectiveness of mental health and substance abuse treatment for adults age 65 and older that experience symptoms of depression, anxiety and/or use multiple prescription drugs and alcohol that were not being addressed or were being addressed ineffectively. Through the outreach process, potential patients were identified and referred to TMC Behavioral Health for further consultation and treatment.


Cultural Competency Self-Assessment
 
The Diversity Council at Truman recently conducted a self-assessment on cultural competency. The self-assessment was based on a tool published by the Joint Commission in 2007 that identified practices hospitals must develop to meet basic standards around cultural and linguistic services. The self-assessment led Truman to restructure its approach to collecting race and ethnicity data and also resulted in the development of its “equity report card,” which tracks specific performance on diversity indicators. The report card stratifies patient and employee profiles, patient payor source, and even CMS core measure scores by race and ethnicity.
 

Improving Interpretation Services for Spanish-speaking OB/GYN Patients
 
Truman Medical Centers’ project “Improving Interpretation Services for Spanish-speaking OB/GYN Patients” has improved the efficiency, quality, and safety of care. By locating an interpreter in the Women’s Clinic, the measurable objectives were to reduce Spanish-speaking patient wait times by 5% and to improve provider satisfaction by 50%. Both objectives were dramatically exceeded.

TMC began by collecting baseline data, which showed a dramatic disparity: average throughput for Spanish speakers was 198 minutes (versus 105 minutes for English speakers). Provider satisfaction hovered around 16%. TMC expected to reduce throughput and improve provider satisfaction by dedicating one interpreter to the clinic rather than dispatching interpreters from the language office.

Initial results were not encouraging: a 17% increase in throughput, so patients were waiting even longer. The cause—clinicians had been delivering some services without an interpreter, so the increase in throughput time for Spanish-speakers was linked to improved quality of care and safety.

After several months of fine-tuning, clinical staff working with Interpreter Services, became fully-integrated and that collaboration achieved positive outcomes. Throughput for Spanish-speaking patients was reduced by 47%, to an average of 76.5 minutes. Provider satisfaction soared to 90%.


For more information about these programs, please contact:

Gabriela Flores
Director, Language Interpreter Services
816-404-1240
Gaby.flores@tmcmed.org