For health care providers in areas of Virginia such as the Eastern Shore, Big Stone Gap, Highland County or Gloucester, the miles and miles between their practices and reliable information resources are great. Isolation from medical libraries, continuing education programs, and colleagues makes keeping health care providers in rural areas a challenge.
AHEC understands these challenges and works to bridge the distance between academic health centers and practitioners so they have ready access to the information needed to provide quality health care to their patients. Partnerships with organizations such as the Office of Rural Health, the National Library of Medicine, and continuing education offices at colleges and universities help AHEC bring resources to local providers. Continuing education programs on topics such as cultural competence and teen pregnancy prevention, teleconferencing with academic health science centers, electronic linkages between practitioners, and traveling librarians that assist with literature searches and software use are just some examples of AHEC programs that support providers in rural areas of the Commonwealth.
AHEC and its partners make Virginia a little smaller for health care providers.
The Eastern Virginia Telemedicine Network (EVTN) is a regional health professions' distance learning network established by Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) and the Eastern Shore Rural Health System, Inc. The EVTN was established for several reasons. First, to improve the recruitment and retention of primary care health providers in medically underserved areas of eastern Virginia by reducing their sense of professional isolation. Second, to provide a convenient and free opportunity for these providers to receive the continuing medical education credit they require for re-licensure in Virginia. Third, to improve the quality of care provided in these areas by providing the most current medical information to providers and by increasing the amount of professional consultation between community and academic health center professionals. Initial funding for the development of the EVTN was provided by the Virginia Health Care Foundation and EVMS.
Northern Virginia is home to one of the most culturally diverse regions in the country, Adjacent to the nation's capital, it is home to people from over 150 different countries who speak, among them, over 100 different languages. English is not the primary language for approximately 15% of the population; in some clinics, 72% of the patients are non-English speaking.
In order to support the health care providers who serve this clientele, Northern Virginia AHEC has developed "Community Health Connect," which provides the following array of services:
Cultural Competence Training Programs - These customized programs, whether for specific groups or more general audiences, take form as workshops, seminars, in-services or conferences. Faculty associates are bilingual/bicultural professionals with direct experience in the field, who bring to each program an interdisciplinary perspective and individual expertise. Hundreds of health care professionals are touched each year by these programs.
Community Health Interpreter Service - Opened in 1999, CHIS now provides trained health care interpreters in over 20 languages at more than 30 locations throughout Northern Virginia. Each candidate is screened for proficiency in both English and the non-English language and required to pass a nationally recognized 40-hour interpreter training program called Bridging the Gap.
Interpreter Training Programs - In addition to operating its own interpreter service, Northern Virginia AHEC offers interpreter training for bilingual individuals who work for other health care organizations. Two curricula are currently available: Bridging the Gap, which trains health care interpreters, and Introduction to Community Interpreting, which is a 16 hour, introductory course appropriate interpreters working in the non-clinical portions of the industry (registration, human resources, etc.). Bridging the Gap is taught by Northern Virginia AHEC, under license to its originator, the Cross Cultural Health Care Program, Seattle, WA.
Provider Training Programs - With the availability of trained health care interpreters, it became clear that health care providers would benefit by a course explaining the difference between trained and untrained interpreters and clarifying roles and expectations for all parties in an interpreted clinical encounter. Therefore Northern Virginia AHEC also offers a very popular 1 ½ hour session entitled How to Communicate Effectively Through an Interpreter.
Consultation - Health care organizations seeking to improve their organizational capacity to provide the fully array of language access services turn to Northern Virginia AHEC for consultation on these matters.
RAHEC has implemented an Internet/intranet information and medical database system at its site and 12 provider practice sites. RAHEC is providing on-line access to biomedical information and intranet connectivity between regional professionals. Since January 1998, a demonstration project as served as a test-bed and model for expanded applications. The usefulness of the information technology to rural providers has been demonstrated. Each participating pracitioner receives a computer workstation capable of accessing health information through in Internet and the World Wide Web, access to an Internet provider and coverage of basic monthly charges for a one-year period, library information services including Grateful Med and other National Library of Medicine on-line services, document viewing and retrieval, group and individual training, on-line communication between regional professionals, on-line education programs, potential for advanced telemedicine applications, and Grand Rounds on-line, a clinical practice application of the technology whereby health professionals can interact during discussion of a clinical case.
For hundreds of Shenandoah Valley residents, linguistic and cultural barriers seriously compromise the quality of health care that they receive. To address this challenge, the Blue Ridge Area Health Education Center (BRAHEC) at James Madison University has adopted a forty-hour curriculum titled "Bridging the Gap" to train persons in providing interpretation in health and medical care encounters.
The Community Health Interpreter Service program serves the LEP (Limited English Proficient) community to improve their access to health care. Health and human service providers benefit from professional interpreters that improve communication and reduce risks.
Primary Practice Opportunities is an online resource designed to recruit for primary care and other various medical specialty positions throughout Virginia, concentrating on the underserved areas of the state.
