MTI Leadership Group
September 19th Meeting Notes
Present:
Malcolm Miles, Region V; Megan Watson, FIRST Project; Gloria Sarmiento and Josie Rojas, Nebraska Appleseed; Jean Krejci, Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department; Stephanie Broady, CHE; Joan Anderson, LCMS; Joan’s student guests; Cecilia Creighton, People’s Health Center; Kevin Flores, St. Elizabeth RMC; Suzy Prenger, Planned Parenthood; Pat Carlson, Clinic with a Heart; Christine Stroud, State Refugee Resettlement Office; Kit Boesch, Lincoln/Lancaster County Human Services; Helen Fagan, Bryan LGH; Diane Lowe, Office of Minority Health; Sharon Baker, Interchurch Ministries of NE; Karen Bahr, MTI Group; Francisca Peterson, FIRST Project, Maria Prendes-Lintel, FIRST Project
Joan opened the meeting with a quick overview of Amendment 2, explaining the history and asking for support.
After introductions, Megan Watson gave a PowerPoint case study of one particular client of FIRST Project and her health care experience subsequent to her arrival in the U.S. It pointed out gaps in the system and the importance of an interpreter. In the ensuing discussion Megan and Dr. Maria indicated that this is typical of clients that FIRST Project serves and that they use these health histories that they research to provide education to providers. We asked if we might be able to use the health history slides in our quest for Medicaid reimbursement for interpreters. Dr. Maria indicated that she would need to get permission from the patient and get back to us. Dr. Maria and Megan also mentioned that their funding will not be renewed this year and currently only have enough funds to stay open until the end of October. They are currently engaged in emergency meetings seeking the monies to keep their doors open.
Committee Reports:
Suzy discussed some options for where we want to go with the Assessment committee activities. She noted that it could be a duplication of efforts for her to write a paper making a recommendation about assessments when there are some others available. We discussed the possibility of identifying the levels of qualifications of interpreters and whether or not that is a task that we want to undertake now that the NCIHC Standards of Practice have been recognized by the CHE Board and the NATF. We decided that everyone needs to read the NCIHC working paper Guide to Initial Assessment of Interpreter Qualifications. We would like some feedback before our next committee meeting on October 4th, but at a minimum we request all group members read it before our November large group meeting that we might have a lengthy discussion on the topic. Suzy will also email to all group members a report from a grad student in New York comparing how all telephonic interpretation companies assess their internal applicants.
Joan discussed some of the findings of the survey of emergency responders. 40 out of 42 emergency responders took the survey and she will email the findings out to the entire group for our perusal. Karen distributed paper copies of the dentist and pharmacists’ survey and asked for comments. We decided that we need to get the Mental Health Survey Results from Dr. Maria in order for our survey of health care providers to be complete. We need to write a summary of the surveys and put it on the web site. We also need to share the data with professional associations.
Pat Carlson and the Policymaker Awareness Committee explained the recent happenings on their end. We distributed the workplan which outlines in a detailed manner how we will move toward our goals of Medicaid reimbursement, educating providers and conducting a social marketing campaign. Karen, Suzy and Diane described their meeting with Ra Drake at the Office of Minority Health and the plans they made to set up some internal meetings in HHSS (which Diane reported Ra has already done), identify a policy brief (which Karen has already done), contact Mara Youdelman and have someone speak about MTI issues at the Legislative Lunch N Learns that OMH is planning.
Karen’s Coordinator Report:
Karen reported that the funds the MTI group had elected to donate for scholarships to NATI for the annual conference helped send 3 Lincoln interpreters to the conference.
Web site is up, please take a look and provide feedback.
Revisiting the Action Strategies
We didn’t have time to discuss this in detail. Many of the action strategies were discussed earlier, but there are two that have an urgency of B that haven’t really been dealt with. As we have no October meeting Karen will send an email with those two action strategies and some questions/food for thought in order that we have an online discussion of where we are going with those.
Malcolm announced that they got the CDC grant.
Next meeting is November 21st, 2006 at noon