Applying the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) approach to Community Health Worker Job Satisfaction: Local and Global Perspectives

Community Health Workers (CHW) have been a continuing presence in the world health care arena for several decades. While the work they do is diverse, all abide by local social and cultural “norms” and are stakeholders within the population they serve. [1] While much literature is available on the importance of community health workers in the provision of care in regions with limited access to health care, there is little known on what inspires someone to engage in the role. The World Health Organization purports that building value for these lay health care providers within their community via training, support, and recognition is critical to the success of any program. An inter-professional team from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock, Texas works with community health workers in both an urban medically underserved area in our city and in a rural medically underserved area in Nicaragua. The purpose of the quality improvement project was to explore traits and characteristics that motivate community health workers to provide services in these medically underserved regions in Nicaragua and west Texas. Knowledge about motivation can assist community health worker programs to tailor processes to promote better hiring, retention, training, and improved job satisfaction, leading to a higher quality of patient care. DOI: 10.18297/rgh/vol2/iss2/12 Submitted Date: March 1, 2019 Accepted Date: August 26, 2019 Website: https://ir.library.louisville.edu/rgh Affiliations: 1Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock, TX 79430 This original article is brought to you for free and open access by ThinkIR: The University of Louisville’s Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in the Journal of Refugee & Global Health by an authorized editor of ThinkIR. For more information, please contact thinkir@louisville.edu. Recommended Citation: Thal, Wendy R. and Jimenez, Rosalinda (2019) “Applying the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) approach to Community Health Worker Job Satisfaction: Local and Global Perspectives,” Journal of Refugee & Global Health: Vol. 2 : Iss. 2 , Article 12.