Publication Date

5-2021

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Abstract

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately impacts Spanish-speaking communities. COVID-19-related health information is overall more available in English than Spanish. From May to August 2020, Spanish COVID-19-related resources on our institution’s website had an average of 2954 views/month compared to 48573 views/month to the English COVID-19-related resources.


Objective:
Our project aim was to increase the percent of page views for Spanish COVID-19-related resources on our institution’s website from 5.7% of the total views to the COVID-19-related pages, to 20% from September 2020 through June 2021.


Design/Methods: An ethnically diverse, multidisciplinary team including physicians proficient in Spanish as well as our institution’s information technology, marketing, and public relations departments used improvement methodology to identify root causes using a driver diagram to guide interventions. Outcome measure was percent of page views to the Spanish COVID-19 website out of all COVID-19 website views (Spanish and English). The total number of Spanish COVID-19 website views served as the process measure. Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles were developed: 1) All COVID-19 information was translated to Spanish (September); 2) Recorded and aired educational video on a local Spanish television station regarding Spanish COVID-19 resources available on the website (October); 3) Addition of QR Code linking to the Spanish COVID-19 website on clinic discharge paperwork (November); 4) Rerun video on local Spanish television station, with a new Holiday Tips and Safety video and a direct link added to their website (December). Run and control charts were utilized to assess improvement over time.


Results: Process measure improved from a mean of 2954 monthly views to 3803 during the intervention period while at the same time English COVID-19 website page views decreased from a mean of 48558 to 40321 monthly page views (Fig 1). During the intervention period, outcome measure displayed special cause improvement from 5.7% to 8.7% of total COVID-19 page views arising from Spanish COVID-19 websites (Fig 2).

Conclusion(s): QI methodology revealed a lack of Spanish resources on our institution’s website and underutilization in accessing them. Interventions included improving the quality and content and disseminating the information internally and externally. The project has been successful in increasing traffic to Spanish COVID-19 resources. QI methodology can be used to help close gaps in pandemic-related health disparities.

Presented at the 2021 PAS Virtual Conference

Disciplines

Health and Medical Administration | Pediatrics

Improving Access to Spanish COVID-19 Resources at a Children’s Hospital

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