05/26/17  Portland, Ore.

Left to right: Reva Gamero, Lia Sebring, Jessica Lomeli, and Olyvia Chac stand in front of their poster presentation at the IHA's National Health Literacy conference.

This month, Richmond's Health Literacy Team members, Reva Gomero, Lia Sebring, Jessica Lomeli, and Olyvia Chac traveled to the Institute for Healthcare Advancement's national health literacy conference in Irvine, California to present their work. Their poster, titled "How to Apply for the Oregon Health Plan: A Health Literate Guide" outlines a huge undertaking by the team to formulate easy-to-understand guides for some of Oregon's most vulnerable populations.

Jessica Lomeli kindly provided a recap of the event. Read on! 

IHA Conference: The Aftermath

By Jessica Lomeli, Medicaid Eligibility Specialist

We made it back safely from the craziness that is SoCal (Southern California)! I just wanted to take the time to thank [the Department] for allowing us to attend the IHA Conference this year. The poster presentation went amazingly, we were able to connect with a bunch of different people. One of them was the conference photographer Jane who happens to be from Eugene, OR and recently applied for OHP herself. 

All the info in our guide was new to her, and she plans on letting her son-in-law know because he applied over nine months ago and has not heard anything back yet. I'm helping her to figure out what happened to his application. 

While Olyvia and Reva were presenting the poster, Lia and I were checking out the other presenters. We met with Jeni from Wisconsin who helped to make Badger Care, their version of OHP, more health literate. Their website is amazing! I was chatting with Lia and I hope we can come up with something like this for Richmond.

My overall plan though is to create a space within the clinic where Patients are able to go to and see what Richmond has to offer. So far I already have two projects waiting to be approved by the Richmond Health Literacy Subcommittee on how to get a referral and understanding insurance terms. More to come on those, hopefully by next year's conference.