Tamara Scotto is between appointments and has a moment of downtime, a rarity in her new position. The former director of Orange Regional Medical Center”™s wound care center is now director of the hospital”™s “Healthy Heart” outreach program. She spends most of her time traveling to locations in Orange County to promote cardio health with Debra Brock, a registered nurse.
Their rounds embrace both the commonality of human infirmities and a United Nations of tongues to describe them.
The goal is to encourage people to participate in the program and take care of their health before they end up in the emergency room. “People are a bit shy about coming forward to talk about health care,” says Scotto, “especially if it is not in their native tongue.”
To overcome that obstacle, Scotto and Brock utilize what she calls the language line. “You put your cell phone on speaker, and a translator is available. Through the network of translators, we haven”™t found a language we haven”™t been able to reach out to yet ”¦ and that includes Cantonese and Tibetan. We have a partnership with Hudson River Healthcare Health Centers and are working in its locations in Goshen and Walden.”
Scotto sees the partnership Orange Regional and Hudson River Healthcare Centers have formed as a winning situation for both providers and patients. “The hospital provides the education about preventative measures people can take against heart disease, and the clinics can provide free services on-site.”
Scotto says the duo also visits companies that request their service. “Some employers have a large percentage of Latinos working for them. They find it difficult to come forward and ask for help because of both language and cultural barriers.” If the employer cannot afford to provide insurance, or if the employees cannot afford to purchase it, they are directed to a community health center that will work with them on a sliding-scale fee. If they”™re insured, Scotto and Brock help them find a primary-care physician.
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Scotto says the program has been “a very rewarding experience. We make a difference in peoples”™ lives, and we go wherever we are needed. We work in approximately 28 community programs. We visit six of the programs on a monthly basis and the others on a quarterly basis, and we do follow-ups with all our patients on a regular basis.”
To date, Scotto and Brock have participated in 10 health fairs since the program started. “We exceeded our goals as far as volume,” says Scotto. “Our goal in 2006 was 1,000 people and we saw almost 1,500. In 2007, we are already up to 1,700 people, but what we”™d like to see increase is the follow-up rate from the patients themselves.”
The patient-initiated follow-up was 12 percent in 2006 and is up to approximately 27 per cent for 2007, but the “healthy heart” team hopes that number will grow significantly as people become more aware of the need to follow up and make the necessary changes in lifestyle to promote good health.
The New York State Department of Health recently gave the Orange Regional program a $14,500 grant to help reduce asthma, diabetes, heart disease and stroke among the Latino population. “The elimination of health disparities affecting minority communities is among our top priorities,” said state Health Department Commissioner Dr. Richard Daines in a prepared statement.
The funding gained from the 12-month grant, runs through April 2008 and is being used at Hudson River Health Care”™s health centers around the county. Orange Regional Medical Center supplies the nursing staff, and the grant provides all the necessary supplies and an on-site Spanish interpreter at each screening.
Scotto is thrilled with the new grant money, which has helped bring more services to both Orange County and to a new satellite office in Sullivan County.
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