Best Practice Guidelines for Implementing and Evaluating Community Health Worker Programs in Health Care Settings

Authors: Melissa Gutierrez Kapheim, MS Jamie Campbell, MPH

There is a growing movement among health care organizations to adopt the Community
Health Worker (CHW) model into their system as a way to provide comprehensive care
to patients and community members. At the same time there is uncertainty about how
to implement the CHW model to achieve better patient outcomes, higher quality of care,
and lower health care costs. With generous funding from the Lloyd A. Fry Foundation,
the Sinai Urban Health Institute (SUHI) in Chicago, IL embarked on a two-year project
(2011-2013) to create the Community Health Worker Best Practice Guidelines with the
aim of addressing the gaps in knowledge about how to effectively implement the CHW
model.