(Continuing to post on some of the session from our 7th Annual Ix Conference from June 12-13. Note that the PowerPoint presentations are now available. We had a minor glitch in our transfer to PDFs, so you need to rotate them sideways. We’ll get that fixed tomorrow.)

One of the most innovative Ix leaders in the safety-net provider community is Neil Calman, MD, the CEO of the Institute for Family Health (IFH), a network of federally qualified community health centers in New York. He presented in our Ix & Health Disparities Track in a session on “Engaging Safety-Net Providers in HIT” with Kyu Rhee, MD, MPP, Director of Innovation & Program Coordination, NIH Center for Minority Health & Health Disparities. IFH was one of the sites we visited during our Patient-Centered HIT Initiative.

Neil has a direct way of putting things and his presentation probably set a PowerPoint font size record. He started off by telling the audience that, “For the past 6 years we have done everything we could to help bring information to our patients to help them improve their health.”

He then frames this in terms of what it means for the clinicians at IFH: “We have worked really hard to be a model for how electronic health records could be used to help us become…Information Therapists!!”

Neil explained what they learned from their patients when they studied what the health care experience was like for people with chronic conditions in the southwest Bronx. What they found out was that–for many of them–going to the doctor’s office was often “traumatic.” They found two really important things. First, there was great distrust of, and disrespect by, health care providers serving racial an d ethnic minorities. Second, there was bad communication resulting in major misunderstandings.

So when IFH decided to invest $2 million in its EHR deployment, they did it with these two lessons from their patients in mind. Neil said, “We deployed our EHR in a way that would build trust wit our patients. And give them the tools to help them find their way through the health care system.”

That’s why they designed their exam rooms so there were flat-panel monitors that clinicians and patients could look at together and put printers in there so clinicians could print out Ix for their patients and hand it right to them.

It’s amazing what clinicians can do for their patients in EHR implementation if they start by asking them what they need and then bake that into their implementation plans. It’s too bad that’s not a requirement for every EHR deployment in the country.

African American men have the highest incidence and death rates for prostate cancer than any other racial/ethnic group in the US.  How can information therapy (Ix) promote increased health equity in prostate cancer outcomes?  One of the functions of Ix is to deliver relevant health information to consumers where they are – in this case, the barber shop.

Research suggests that community-based education efforts by barbers could increase prostate cancer screenings among African American men.  Barbers were trained on an educational intervention based on the principles of Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy.  In this ongoing pilot study, barbers ask male clients over the age of 40 if they have been screened for prostate cancer.  Clients who have not been screened are educated about prostate cancer and informed that they are a candidate for screening.

The training resulted in a statistically significant increase in barbers’ knowledge of prostate cancer.  Screening rates are not yet available, but preliminary results from qualitative interviews indicate increased knowledge about prostate cancer in clients.

If you are interested in promoting health equity, join us at the 7^th Annual Ix Conference in Washington, DC on June 11 and 12.  The Ix and Health Disparities track on June 12 will address promising new interventions that have been developed to narrow health disparities.