Bridging Gaps in Complex Care: Gladys Antelo-Allen

A new initiative designed to address the training gap for community health workers, peer support specialists, nurses, doctors, social workers, and case managers was launched by Camden Coalition. Gladys Antelo-Allen, ​​associate director of Education and Training at Camden Coalition, discusses how the skills lab offers fast, focused microlessons on various complex care topics, including motivational interviewing, harm reduction, care planning, trauma-informed care, and de-escalation.

Motivational interviewing tools like OARS (open-ended questions, affirmations, reflective listening, summaries) are introduced, as well as structured approaches. Harm reduction involves using the risk set and setting framework. Care planning focuses on patient-centered care plans, while trauma-informed care emphasizes patient-led goals and managing personal triggers. De-escalation strategies are taught to handle conflicts effectively and maintain trust.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Transcript

Camden Coalition's skills lab focuses on complex care, what was the motivation to address this approach and who is this tailored to?

Complex care is tough. It is about patients that have a lot going on medically, socially, emotionally and really, too often, the people that are providing the care don't have the sufficient training that really speaks to those unique challenges. So, we created the skills lab to really help some of that training gap. It's built for, I'd say, the real heroes of care, right? The community health workers, the peer support specialists, the nurses, doctors, social workers, case managers. We know that those folks are really juggling a million and 1 things on a day to day, so we designed the skills lab to be something that's fast, focused, and really relevant to their day to day. If you're really passionate about making a difference in complex care but you're really short on time, then this is what you really want to be looking forward to.

Can you discuss a few of the key topics the microlessons cover?

There are a few other topics that may have, as I mentioned, more than 1 microlesson tied to it. Another important topic for us to dive into is motivational interviewing, right? Something that's become another hot topic in complex care. It's a super useful tool in patient engagement, and we have 2 microlessons that are tied to that topic. The first one is implementing OARS, and that micro lesson introduces key motivational interviewing tools such as the OARS: open-ended questions, affirmations, reflective listening, and summaries to really help guide conversations effectively while you're working with patients. Then, that second microlesson tied to motivational interviewing is implementing the motivational interviewing process so learners that tap into this microlesson explore a more structured approach of motivational interviewing, helping the patients identify and really articulate their own reasons for change.

We have the topic of harm reduction, and the microlesson that's tied to that is using risk set and setting. This framework really meets patients where they are in helping address risk factors and minimizing harm in practical ways. Care planning is another topic, and we dive into the skills; the microlesson that's tied to that is developing a care plan. In that lesson, learners discover how to create actual patient-centered care plans that are tailored to the individual needs and priorities of that person.

One of the other topics that we dive into is trauma-informed care, and we have 2 microlessons that are tied to trauma-informed care. The first microlesson is letting the patient lead. This lesson empowers providers to really support patients in setting their own goals and taking ownership of their care journey. The second microlesson tied to trauma-informed care is identifying and managing personal triggers, which is one of my favorite topics to really think about. A lot of the work that we do in complex care really affects us at that kind of personal level, right? We're all in it because we care. We all have our own personal triggers and our own stuff that we bring to this work. So this microlesson really dives into "How do we recognize our own emotions and responses and maintain professionalism during challenging interactions?"

One of the other topics that we also dive into is de-escalation, and that's something that's really important in the work that we do as well. Again, working with individuals that are experiencing a lot of complexity, stakes are often really high, so we address this through the microlesson called Reducing Tensions and Resolving Conflicts. That lesson equips learners with strategies to handle conflicts effectively and hopefully keep the trust intact while really focusing on diffusing difficult situations.