Staying Well Connected Blog
Fostering the exchange of community health information.

On Thursday, February 4, Paula Maez and Linda Levy taught two classes on WISER (Wireless Information System for Emergency Responders: http://wiser.nlm.nih.gov/) and REMM (Radiation Emergency Medical Management: http://www.remm.nlm.gov/) to employees of the Laredo Health Department, to fireman and EMTs from the Laredo Fire Department, and to area HazMat specialists. Both WISER and REMM are resources produced by the Specialized Information Services division of the National Library of Medicine as part of a continuing effort to bring important information about disaster management to those who need it. WISER provides a wide range of information on hazardous substances, including substance identification support, physical characteristics, human health information, and containment and suppression guidance, and REMM provides guidance for health care providers and hospitals about clinical diagnosis and treatment during transportation events involving radiation, terrorist incidents, or mass casualty radiological/nuclear events.

Class participants said that the classes were very informative and indicated that the sites pulled together
multiple resources in an easy, understandable, accessible format.

Yesterday, Federal Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra joined the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition in the official launch of a new health information service for new mothers and mothers-to-be: text4baby.  Here’s how it works:

• Pregnant women or new mothers can text the word BABY to 511411 on their mobile phones (or BEBE to 511411 to receive information in Spanish), or can sign up online at http://text4baby.org.
• Each week through pregnancy and the baby’s first year, the mother will receive three free text messages with information relevant to where they are in the timeline of their pregnancy or baby’s development.  Messages also help connect them with local clinics and support services for prenatal and infant care.  These short messages include information on topics including immunization, nutrition, seasonal flu, mental health, smoking and alcohol, oral health, and safe sleep.
• More than 100 entities participate in the government-industry-healthcare partnership making this possible, including CDC and HRSA, the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition, mobile health platform provider Voxiva, the CTIA Wireless Foundation and wireless providers, Grey Health Group, and Johnson & Johnson.  Participating providers at this time include Alltel, Assurance Wireless, AT&T, Boost Mobile, Cellular South, Cellcom, Centennial Cellular, Cincinnati Bell, Metro PCS, N-Telos, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular,Verizon Wireless. and Virgin Mobile USA.

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A multi-part article in the Texas Tribune reports that despite the efforts of Congress to expand access to health care,  thousands of Texas residents in rural counties will not benefit.  In many rural and border areas, there simply are no family physicians or just a  few for huge areas of the State and fewer specialists.  Many counties have no hospitals or trauma care, as small community hospitals have been unable to attract staff or to afford to remain open while treating many patients with little or no insurance.  Rural and border residents may have to travel hundreds of miles to seek  routine medical care or even to fill prescriptions, leading to lack of the most basic care:  “It’s a void medical experts say contributes to poor health and even death, as rural residents succumb to preventative diseases that they don’t have the doctors, money, or transportation to treat.”  Incentives to attract physicians to rural areas have done little to solve the problems, and many border residents continue to seek treatment in Mexico, where it is less expensive to obtain care and medications.

On Friday December 1, staff from the UT Health Science Center Library presented, “Health Information Resources on the Web”, to Family Specialists from the Northeast Independent School District in San Antonio. The Family Specialists work closely with their campus families in educating them to take a more active role in their child’s education. At their monthly meetings, information is disseminated that they can share with parents, teachers and students.

Paula Maez and Lara Sapp introduced them to two authoritative online health information resources, MedlinePlus.gov and healthfinder.gov. These resources help consumers locate the best government and nonprofit health information on the internet.