Technology

The Internet has revolutionized the practice of public health. In recent years, communications technology has made significant strides in promoting health and fighting disease. A recent PEW report found that 52 million people (55% of all who had access to the Internet) went online to find health related information for themselves or for their family members. Over the past two years, the Center for Immigrant Health has emphasized the use of information technology to enable creative public health applications, as well as to make our projects more effective and streamlined. This has resulted in the following technology initiatives:

A Computerized Eligibility Screening Tool (CEST) for Child Health Plus and Medicaid has been developed. Initial enrollment activities through our Child Health Plus for Immigrant Children (CHPIC) project revealed that eligibility calculations done by hand had several problems. They were tedious, time-consuming, and prone to human errors. This led us to design and develop CEST. It is a tool to enhance efficiency in facilitated enrollment, accelerate training for facilitated enrollers, and reduce errors, aiding in quality management.

A Web-based Case Management Tool for our Community Tuberculosis Prevention Project, which facilitates Internet-based scheduling, case management, and program administration.

Remote Simultaneous Medical Interpretation to provide cost-efficient, remote simultaneous medical interpreter services to New York's large numbers of non-English-speaking patients.

Bridging the Language Gap, a web-based learning module for health care practitioners on cross-cultural health care and working with interpreters. This instructional module has been developed to help medical students, residents, and other health care practitioners communicate more effectively with Limited English Proficient (LEP) patients.

A Virtual Community for Immigrants with Cancer (VCIC) has been developed to advance immigrants' ability to cope with cancer and increase their confidence in accessing treatment options. Supported by the Langeloth Foundation, VCIC addresses the need for support programs that meet the informational and psychosocial needs of immigrants diagnosed with cancer through the development and evaluation of an Online Support Group (OSG) for latino immigrant women with breast cancer. You can log in to VCIC's Spanish website at www.cavic.org

Comunidad de Apoyo Virtual para Inmigrantes con Cáncer (CAVIC) se ha creado para poder mejorar la habilidad de los inmigrantes a la hora de afrontar el cáncer y para aumentar su confianza a la hora de acceder a las opciones de tratamiento. Patrocinada por la Langeloth Foundation, la VCIC aborda la necesidad de programas de apoyo que pretenden cubrir las necesidades de información y las necesidades emocionales de los inmigrantes diagnosticados con cáncer. Esto lo hace a través del desarrollo y evaluación de un grupo de apoyo por Internet para inmigrantes hispanas con cáncer de seno. Puede acceder a la página web de cavic en www.cavic.org