Community Outreach Activities

The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston fulfills its community service mission in many diverse ways. Through a variety of institutional and school-driven programs, the university provides much needed health care and health education services to members of our community who might otherwise not have these benefits.

We also seek to fulfill our service mission through informational outreach to the larger community with innovative programs and services designed to educate and enrich citizens in Houston, the state and the nation.

Dental Branch top
Dental Branch community outreach efforts are extensive and are part of the educational programs offered in the school. The Dental Branch has affiliations with 48 HISD schools and over 30 clinics, community agencies and long-term health care centers such as the Harris County Health Department, Fort Bend Family Health Center, Houston Medical Center, Bering Dental Center, City of Houston Casa Nueva, Brazos Valley Community Clinic, Communities and Schools and multiple sites through the school’s Community Mobile Dental Van where students provide oral health education and clinical care. In FY 2006, the Dental Branch conducted outreach programs at a variety of sites throughout greater Houston – where the school provided oral health education and 80,711 patient treatments. This is in addition to 131,477 treatments on the main campus and 24,783 in hospitals. Also, the Dental Branch is one of the primary sources of charity care in the Greater Houston Area – providing over $1.1 million of free or discounted dental care in FY 2006. The Community Mobile Dental Van, mentioned above, is an important and valuable participant in the school’s outreach efforts, visiting many sites throughout Texas providing oral cancer screenings and clinical care. In 2006 the van expanded its services to East Texas.

Faculty, residents, students and staff joined together in August 2005 to treat more than 500 evacuees of Hurricane Katrina at a temporary medical center established by the UT Health Science Center at Houston. In past years the school has also sponsored a day of free dental care for the community in conjunction with the Greater Houston Dental Society. “Centennial Smiles” has afforded hundreds of are residents free dental care.
The Dental Branch’s School of Dental Hygiene also has active outreach programs with off-site activities that include both educational projects and clinical care. These include the Fort Bend Family Health Center, Harris County Health Department, The University Dental Center at Memorial Hermann, Houston Medical Center, San Jose Clinic, The Star of Hope, and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences top
The Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (GSBS) outreach program continued its now 15-year alliance with HISD’s Brookline Elementary School by interacting with students in the fourth and fifth grades as well as their teachers. This school is located in a predominantly disadvantaged Hispanic community. In the reporting year, the GSBS outreach program served 286 students and through this partnerships, GSBS graduate students and faculty raised the understanding and enthusiasm for science through numerous initiatives. The projects included coaching teams of students in scientific methods, hands-on experiments for the children, and class demonstrations to supplement science teachers’ lectures. Several workshops on investigative science were held for the fourth and fifth grade teachers to inspire and deepen their scientific awareness. The Benny Garcia Young Scientist Award was presented by GSBS for the seventh year at Brookline Elementary.

In 2005-2006, the GSBS outreach program provided judges for six local school science fairs plus the regional science fair; hosted two visits of 60 students participating in the annual National Youth Leadership Forum; provided lectures for 27 science teachers at UT Pan American; hosted a total of 56 elementary and high school students for two tours of research labs; provided round table discussions of science careers and graduate education. Participation in the Houston Hispanic Forum Career and Education Day continues to expand. Hispanic GSBS students served as panelists for discussion of the topic Why I Chose Graduate School, and were featured panel speakers who discussed careers in biomedical research. GSBS hosted a booth with an estimated 1,500 direct visitors who experienced the effects of temperature on matter.

The GSBS Alumni Association provided a program on viruses to over 250 fourth graders at Sylvan Rodriguez Elementary School. Active student participation through alumni resources enabled an interactive 3-dimensional program about viruses, antibiotics and cells.

GSBS sponsored a student with a minimal financial support to participate in “Be a Biomedical Scientist for a Day” at the Science and Engineering Fair of Houston to help her prepare for her science fair project.

School of Health Information Sciences top
The School of Health Information Sciences is committed to improving care and access to care using information technology.  During 2005-2006 students and faculty participated in several outreach service-learning activities as evidence of this commitment. The school participated in Gateway to Care to develop information system requirements for Federally Qualified Healthcare Centers (FQHC). This led to the development of a formal Request for Proposal (RFP) for a clinic management system for use by FQHC clinics. School faculty and staff led The Schull Institute’s Informatics efforts domestically in Houston by developing prototypes for use in a demonstration program with Good Neighbor Healthcare Center, an FQHC look-alike center. They also partnered with the City of Houston and Gateway to Care to improve information systems for the purpose of enhancing patient access and accountability and providing annual community input to improving care. Specific activities include:

Houston's Medically Uninsured / Underinsured

• Gateway to Care: Conducted evaluation of the navigator program; assisted in the selection process for vendor responses for the RFP conducted in the previous year, assisted in recruiting physicians for the Provider Health Network to provide pro-bono services to Houston's uninsured.
• Harric County Hospital District: Provided project management and evaluation for a pilot telemedicine implementation for dermatology and psychiatry to one HCHD clinic and an additional FQHC clinic site, El Centro de Corazon. This has lead to the commitment to develop a sustainable model for telemedicine services for Houston medically underinsured / uninsured building on the pilot model for on-demand telemedicine as a tool to prevent the use of the emergency rooms for specialty care entry documented in a SHIS Master thesis project.
• Schull Institute / Demonstration Project Using YDP Technology / Model: Conducted usability analysis of a YDP prototype at Good Neighbor Healthcare Center to have a system of care that was equal in accountability for patients to private practice settings. Recruited specialists to provide on-demand pro-bono service to the clinic telemedically (psychiatry, asthma, diabetes, cardiology, preventive services). This has become a student dissertion project. A learning environment testbed was designed for supporting physician, nurse, and patient education using an open source education system. This SHIS Telemedicine Course project is to test a model that could work for improving access to specialty car.
• Develop training programs for future student research projects in informatics and outcomes to reduce disparities in care through the Public Health Informatics Dual Degree Program.
• Develop financial models for program sustainable and expansion.
• Conduct a formal analysis of the Gateway to Care navigator program's information system.
• Partner with the Center for Health Outcomes Research and Development in Japan (CHORD-J) to introduce informatics into Japan and develop demonstration projects to showcase the effectiveness of information technology to improve care.
• Develop a prototype for clinical accountability for outcomes using hypertension (YDP) for GNHC.

State of Texas

• Informatics consultation to the Governor's Health Information Technology Advisory Committee to define a roadmap for clinical technology adoption for Texans. The School was highlighted as a resource vehicle for continuing education for Texas physicians.
• Participation in a statewide consensus effort to document the issues on the use of a community health record to reduce disparities in healthcare. State of Texas Department of Health Servcies / Texas Health Policy Institute.

A Work Study Program was developed to target the recruitment of minority students from historically underserved schools so they could have a part-time job at organizations affiliated with the School during their Masters Program of Study.

Medical School top
The Medical School provides a variety of outreach services, from organized medical clinics and providing services at health fairs to student-initiated volunteer activites. Through clinical inpatient and outpatient services, UT Physicians provide more than $100 million in uncompensated medical care to the uninsured and underinsured of Houston and surrounding areas. Medical School students have created a new tradition of Outreach Day each spring, which features a variety of projects in the community on a given Saturday - from weeding a public park and planting trees to cleaning and painting. Students also participate in the HOMES Clinic, a medical clinic for the homeless of Houston. And all of the student organizations have a sevice mission that involve a variety of projects, from mentoring disadvantaged students to hosting food and clothing drives. Another Medical School tradition is UT House Medics, which features staff, faculty, and students going into the community and helping fix up the house of a Houston neighbor who can't do it him or herself. A more recent service tradition is the school's blood drive held around each September 11 anniversary to honor the victims of that tragedy.

School of Nursing top
Maintaining strong ties with area health providers, agencies and community leaders is an important part of the educational outreach efforts at the School of Nursing (SON). The school offers an innovative and collaborative work/study/scholarship program with three local hospitals - Texas Children’s Hospital, St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital, and UT M D Anderson Cancer Center. Through employment as patient care assistants, students receive valuable clinical experience and, after completing one successful semester, they receive a scholarship for their remaining semesters of full-time undergraduate study.

SON faculty and students provide outreach service to families and individuals in several affiliated clinics throughout the Houston area and selected schools in the Houston Independent School District.

School of Public Health top
Faculty and students of the School of Public Health (SPH) in Houston and at the school’s regional campuses in Brownsville, Dallas, El Paso and San Antonio are actively involved in a large number of community outreach projects and activities.

Students in the MPH and DrPH degree programs complete an internship or practicum as part of their academic requirements. This is an assignment to a community agency or organization where the student has the opportunity to learn about community health practice and apply classroom learning in a real world setting. Special internship programs include: Health Policy Fellowships wherein fellows serve as full-time staff to members of the Texas Legislature; H-E-B Fellowships, a partnership with the City of Houston Department of Health and Human Services; and Industrial Hygiene and Dietetic internships with various industries and organizations. The SPH places approximately 160 students each year who complete tasks jointly assigned by a community preceptor and faculty sponsor.

Four centers at the School of Public Health offer local, regional and national continuing education opportunities. The Centers have Advisory Councils comprised of members from the Texas Department of State Health Services, local health department, state public health associations and community members. The Texas Public Health Training Center is a collaborative project which includes the Texas A&M University School of Rural Public Health and the University of North Texas School of Public Health. The Training Center provides a wide range of training services to the staff and board members of local health departments and the state health department as well as to local and state elected officials and is a major force in leadership training for the state’s public health workforce. Faculty and staff from the Center for Biosecurity and Public Health Preparedness provide training to local, state, national and international agencies in how to recognize, prepare for, and respond to bioterrorism and other public health disasters and emergencies. The mission of the Southwest Center for Occupational and Environmental Health is to promote health, safety and well-being in the workplace and the community. The Center provides graduate-level academic training and continuing education for occupational and environmental health specialists. The Center for Health Promotion and Prevention Research through the Continuing Education in Health Promotion program offers a series of courses and workshops aimed to provide competencies in the development, evaluation and dissemination of health promotion and disease prevention initiatives in diverse settings and communities.

The graduate certificate in public health is designed for those who work in public health, but lack formal training. Participants also include health care providers who need knowledge and skills in the core disciplines of public health but may not want the full MPH curriculum.

Select community-based projects currently underway in the regional campus include.

• Creating and sustaining bi-national tuberculosis consortium to address the problems of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. This has developed into the first TB research program located in South Texas (Brownsivlle).
• Conducting a media campaign to provide information on the epidemic of obesity and diabetes in conjunction with a local popular televsion station (Brownsville).
• Advising Amarillo Health Department on publich health issues (Dallas).
• Participating on Dallas Health Start Interconceptual Care Committee (Dallas).
• Producing a Project Amigas bilingual video promoting cervical cancer screening (El Paso).
• Working with the American Cancer Society (local and Texas) to develop and evaluate health promotion messages (El Paso).
• Conducting community assessments as a class activity for the Mental Health Disaster Consortium, the City Task Force on Hunger and Homeless, the Coalition for Health Families, and a SPH-formed coalition that is tracking the economic, health and environmental impact of South Bexar County (San Antonio).
• Providing technical Assistance for the "Mano a Mano" project to reduce child abuse in the Westside of San Antonio by working in partnership with community residents to strengthen families (San Antonio).

Coordinated Approach to Child Health (CATCH) Program is an elementary school nutrition and physical activity program designed to prevent chronic disease. The mission of the CATCH Program is to create healthy children and health school envirionments throughout Texas. CATCH is designed to help schools, children and their families adopt healthy eating and phycical activity behaviors through changes at the elementary school level. The four CATCH components are: (1) Classroom Curriculum (Go for Health), (2) Physical Education curriculum (CATCH PE), (3) Food Service Program (Eat Smart), and (4) Family Involvement (Home Team). More than 1,200 schools have adopted the program and over 5,000 teachers and staff have been trained.

Tu Salud, Si Cuenta! - Your Health Matters! Is a theory-based physical activity and nutrition media campaign for adults aged 20-45 (and their families) on the US/Mexico border (one million people), accompanied by promotora outreach and additional health information to two impoverished communities (2,000 households). The project is delivered to the comomunity through a number of community agencies and organizations, inlcuding Televisa, UT Brownsville, and an extensive list of community organizations and stakeholder.

Qué Sabrosa Vida (What A Delicious Life) is a community based bi-lingual nutrition intervention program delivered by the community to its residents for the last 7 years. 33 different community agencies in the Paso del Norte Region, including Juarez, deliver the intervention through 202 sites with more than 15,000 people involved to date. El Paso ISD has partnered to extend the program to parents of children in their schools.

UT Harris County Psychiatric Center top
The University of Texas Harris County Psychiatric Center (UTHCPC) provides leadership in the area of community outreach through participation in a variety of community activities. UTHCPC develops and disseminates mental health information to the community and acts as a catalyst in creating an environment that promotes the exchange of ideas in topics of high priority and relevancy to the public mental health system of Harris County. During FY 2006, UTHCPC participated in a number of health and community education fairs providing mental health information to more than 50,000 people.

UTHCPC works in cooperation with mental health consumer groups, such as the Alliance for the Mentally Ill, the Depressive and Manic Depressive Association, the Mental Health Association and service providers such as the Harris County Mental Health Mental Retardation Authority. The center provides printed materials, plans community education symposia and seminars, conducts hospital tours and coordinates a Speakers Bureau, thus making UTHCPC’s professional staff available to Houston area community and school groups.
UTHCPC’s service outreach programs include the following:

• Head Start
• Children’s Assessment Center Program
• After – School Program for Children and Adolescents with Emotional Problems (PASS: Partners in After School Services
• Sub-Acute Program for Juvenile Offenders
• Partial Hospitalization Program
• Intensive Outpatient Program/Outpatient Program
• Neighborhood Centers

In addition to the programs listed above, UTHCPC is actively seeking collaborative service agreements for grant and other funded programs aimed at early intervention, provision of services to the elderly and underserved populations. To this end, UTHCPC is a member of a broad collaborative of agencies, including UTHSC-H, Baylor and the Harris County Community Access Collaborative, designed to assist in collaborative efforts to obtain grants for the local community.

Texas-Mexico Border Health Services top
The Texas-Mexico Border Health Services projects were designed to assist with desperately needed medical and dental services, health professional education, health promotion and disease-prevention education. These health care projects are serving a major segment of the Texas population that would otherwise not have access to such services. The overall impact of this initiative is a health care delivery system that is exceeding the initial goals of serving the unserved and underserved population along the border. The Texas-Mexico Border Coordinator’s Office provides daily management of the projects and serves as a liaison among UTHSC-H, UT System Administration and other relevant persons and agencies located along the Texas-Mexico border who are affiliated with the project. Following are some of their achievements:

The Starr County Services Project, under the direction of Dr. Craig Hanis (SPH), has led to the identification of a major gene that predisposes Mexican-Americans to adult-onset diabetes and the promise of earlier and better treatment. In February, the office in Starr County celebrated its 25th anniversary in the community. The project provides 4,000 participant contacts per year for free intensive physical exams and follow ups involving glucose, cholesterol, triglycerides and hypertension screening, specialized eye exams and ultrasound evaluations to Mexican-Americans along the border. Participants become eligible for the diabetes education programs that have grown out of these efforts. In addition, the Project Center is a referral center for the Texas Commission for the Blind.

The Medical Mobile Clinic is nationally known for health care services and education provided along the border to residents in the colonias in both Hidalgo and Cameron counties. UTHSC-H has provided much needed health care to this federally designated Medically Underserved Area and Health Professions Shortage Area for the past 18 years. In March 2006, the third iteration of the rolling clinic was dedicated at a Grand Opening ceremony in Houston and the Lower Rio Grande Valley. The clinic was funded by generous donors, including the Wichita Falls Community Foundation. Matching state funds helped to complete the purchase and the Cullen Trust for Healthcare provided funds for new telemedicine equipment. The new clinic has a new nurse practitioner to expand the health services provided, a LVN, and medical clerk.

Using new encrypted technology across Internet 2, UTHSC-H physicians are providing telemedicine to assist the medically unserved and underserved along the border. The telemedicine occurs from UTHSC-H Medical School to the patients on the Medical Mobile Clinic.

The Rio Grande Valley’s first school-based telemedicine clinic was established in an underserved community in the spring, 2005 by UTHSC-H through funding from the Cullen Foundation. In addition, through another generous gift, the latest telemedicine equipment is being installed in three colonia schools in Hidalgo and Cameron counties with telemedicine consultations to be provided by UTHSC-H physicians.

UTHSC-H and UT Brownsville developed an affiliation in 2005 for the provision of telemedicine consultations given by UTHSC-H to UT Brownsville students in need of care at the UT Brownsville Student Health Clinic. This UT component affiliation provides physician care in this medically underserved area of the state.

The Interactive Distance Learning Project for elementary students in border colonias was initiated in January 2002. Physicians who are academic fellows in the UTHSC-H Medical School’s department of family and community medicine are presenting health education programs via videoconferencing to over 230 fifth-graders in two school districts on topics including hygiene and nutrition, birth and heredity, death and dying, skin care and drug and alcohol abuse. The students are located 385 miles away in Las Milpas and Alton colonias. Due to its success, the program has initiated its fourth year of health education activities with an additional school district and with parents also participating in these sessions.

Seven research-based diabetes patient education videotapes (English and Spanish) for Hispanic diabetic adults. The tapes have been distributed free to border community/migrant health centers and hospitals for these past years. In addition, the videotapes have been digitized and placed on the UTHSC-H web site for broader dissemination to patients and health care providers. These videotapes have been requested and used not only in clinics and academic settings in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, but also throughout Texas and the nation. They are presently being updated due to the response for their usefulness.

Beginning in the Fall 2004, the UT Brownsville and Texas Southmost College (UTB/TSC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) embarked on a research opportunity for UTB undergraduate students and faculty through the MBRS Minority Biomedical Research Support Program. MBRS is a federal project to strengthen minority institutions research capabilities both for the students and the faculty. The overall goal is to enhance the competitiveness of the students in pursuit of graduate research opportunities upon graduating from UT Brownsville. UTHSC-H is working with UT Brownsville in the overall evaluation of this NIH project.

The UT Brownsville MCAT Prep Course started in January 2003 through funding from UTHSC-H. The program began providing a diagnostic test for sophomores to help them in preparing for their MCAT experience and a 13-week course for juniors, seniors and graduate students at UTB/TSC. These students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds are being provided an opportunity through UTHSC-H to compete for a medical school place upon graduation from UTB.

Greater Houston AHEC
Through a partnership with the University of Texas Medical Branch-Galveston’s East Texas Area Health Education Center (AHEC) program, and the Greater Houston AHEC, the office’s health services improve the supply and distribution of health care professionals with an emphasis on primary care, and increases access to quality health care through community/academic partnerships, especially for the medically underserved. AHEC has a great sensitivity to community needs with special attention given to improving the representation of minorities and the disadvantaged in the health professions and meeting the needs of populations with inadequate access or availability of primary care services. The Greater Houston AHEC includes Fort Bend, Harris, Montgomery and Waller counties, and provides services such as needs assessment, health careers promotion, continuing education, information dissemination services and community-based education for students in allied health sciences, dentistry, medicine, nursing, nurse practitioner and nurse midwife program, physician assistant studies and social work programs. The UTHSC-H Community and Educational Outreach Director is the Assistant Director for Academic Partnerships for Greater Houston AHEC.

Health Education Training Centers Alliance of Texas
Health Education Training Centers Alliance of Texas (HETCAT) is the state-wide collaborative effort of all the medical schools in Texas, along with other educational institutions involved in health professions education. UTHSC-H has been a member of HETCAT statewide Council since its inception in 1990. Membership also includes agencies that have a direct impact on health services in Texas. To date, there are 21 participating educational institutions and 15 state health agencies and organizations in the HETCAT Council. With a federal mandate to serve an area as far as 300 miles from the Texas-Mexico border, HETCAT is committed to the principles of community-determined needs and program priorities.