PROJECT CONTINUITY CONNECTING vulnerable patients TO CARE
Project CONTINUITY is working with local communities and clinics to increase access to high-quality cancer prevention, detection and treatment services, especially in behavioral health settings.
INTERVENING TO IMPROVE CARE
project continuity
Understanding needs. Improving health.
Project CONTINUITY was launched to increase cancer screening and HPV vaccine uptake in vulnerable populations. By intervening at behavioral health facilities and other Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) in underserved communities, providers can learn patient needs and link them to needed care and follow-up. These efforts are made possible through collaboration between community leaders, local health care facilities, providers and researchers.
community and clinical impact
improve health
Increasing cancer screening
One of Project CONTINUITY’s main goals is to increase the uptake of evidence-based cancer prevention screenings, with a special focus on at-risk populations, cervical and oral cancer and barriers to care.
counsel
Providing counseling and engagement
Providers and patients engage in shared decision making on screening eligibility and follow-up. They actively work alongside patients, linking them to appropriate care, providing tools for patients to lower their risk, establishing self-management goals and creating a coordinated care plan.
link to care
Connecting patients to treatment
Participating providers: refer patients for treatment, provide service, share their findings with the study group and develop tailored care plans.
support
Linking patients to community resources and support
Project CONTINUITY connects patients with needed community support. Participating providers will assess non-medical risks and barriers to care and provide patients with available community resources to help overcome them.
our Approach
plan
Develop tailored implementation strategies
Create workflows for patients and clinics to gather information related to medical risks and cancer screening schedules. Discuss the information, make closed-loop referrals for follow-up and link patients to community resources to support patients in seeking the recommended services.
learn
Identify key endpoints
Collect identified risks and care needs of patients, clinicians and health systems using a stakeholder work group. This may include examining the social determinants of health for these populations and determining barriers to care.
test
Pilot test the intervention
Create and test an intervention using the strategies, workflows, key intervention elements and endpoints that stakeholders identified.
design
Review and design
Use mixed-methods with qualitative approaches to engage stakeholders in the workflow design and intervention development and quantitative methods to assess the pilot intervention.
Meet our collaborators
The Apalachee Center
Community Health IT
Florida State University
Heart of Florida Health Center
Meridian Behavioral Healthcare
UF Health Internal Medicine
