Community Health Worker

The Community Health Worker (CHW) position is to identify, address and alleviate social barriers that prevent patients from achieving their highest health level.

Cooper’s 2022 Community Health Needs Assessment reports that 4 primary zip codes for Camden City have the highest (5.0) Community Needs Index which assesses for socioeconomic indicators including income, cultural barrier, education, health insurance, and housing (Cooper.CHNA.CHIP.2022.pdf (cooperhealth.org).

The CHW primarily service Cooper patients living in and around the Camden-city area.

The CHWs offer patients telephonic and in-person support to provide the necessary resources and navigation services to address social determinants of health including food insecurity, housing, transportation, and more.

In turn, patients are more able and willing to attend to and seek help for their health care concerns.

Responsibilities:

Create and set patient-specific goals using brief action planning skills to address and eliminate social barriers effecting care 

Field work - meet patients in the home and community settings including hospital and ambulatory clinical settings to deliver culturally competent and linguistically appropriate health education materials and community resources related to goals to patients and family/support systems

Coach patients towards effective self-management and self-efficacy for goal achievement using motivational interviewing techniques.

Assist patients in scheduling health care and social appointments, transportation, and other appointments, as needed

Work closely with medical providers, primary care teams, health advisors, community-based organizations and other agencies to support patients’ goals.

Visit and maintain relationships with Community-based organizations. Act as liaison between patient and community-based organization.
Maintain detailed calendar and bookkeeping to ensure timely follow-up to patients and track activities.

Documentation must include all interactions and outreach performed by team members and completed in the electronic medical record.

Maintain current knowledge of social determinants of health, community-based organizations, CHW best practices, and understanding of social landscape and vulnerability of target population.