Current geriatrics workforce projections indicate that clinicians who care for adults will need basic geriatrics knowledge and skills to address the geriatric syndromes and issues that limit functional independence and complicate medical management. This is most evident for the clinicians caring for veterans in the Department of Veterans Affairs…

Background: Community health efforts often include outreach activities designed to increase awareness and ensure uptake of services or programs. Yet, few comprehensive outreach evaluations exist, particularly those designed to improve access to and use of mental health services. Purpose: This article summarizes the use of two established…

Purpose: Prostate and colorectal cancer (CRC) rates are disproportionately high among African-American men. The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of an intervention in which barbers were trained to educate clients about early detection for prostate and CRC. Design/methodology/approach: Working with an advisory panel of local…

Context: The challenge of providing meaningful health care services to veterans living in rural communities is a major public health concern that involves redefining the traditional facility-based model of care delivery employed in urban areas. Purpose: This paper describes the steps of a demonstration project, the Elko Telehealth Outreach Clinic.…

The Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) is an independent, not-for-profit corporation designated as the administrator of the federal Universal Service Fund (USF) by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). USAC administers the Universal Service Fund and the four Universal Service programs: High Cost, Low Income, Rural Health Care,…

This paper presents the activities of the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) for 2009. The past year was one of accomplishment for USAC. USAC implemented a host of advances in operations, infrastructure, and outreach in an effort to continue to improve collection and disbursement of the Universal Service Fund (USF) support and to…

Describes On Lok, a long-term care approach which has assumed responsibility for providing all services needed by a functionally dependent adult population. Based on the first two years of operation, descriptive data on the service system, its development, participants served, services given, and costs are presented and interpreted. (JAC)

This paper describes a community outreach program that is aimed at mothers of preschool children for the purposes of primary and secondary prevention of mental illness. The goals of the group meetings are to expand the mothers' problem-solving capacities and share child-rearing experiences. The groups are lead by health care professionals. (NG)

Describes the development of a mobile geriatric outreach team. The importance of thorough, interdisciplinary assessment and the offering of active, brief psychotherapy are stressed. Community education programs and consultations to the aging network reach the senior community and other referral sources. Preliminary program evaluation data are…

These three papers describe a cooperative outreach program designed to counsel older rural residents about available community services through use of a door-to-door information effort. The packaging and delivery of the training conference for the outreach workers involved in the outreach project are described in the paper highlighting the work of…

A program designed to introduce residents and medical students to community resources for children and increase their knowledge of the factors affecting children's development is described. Trainees spend approximately one-third of their time in program activities that involve 25 community agencies. (Author/MLW)

Instead of increasing institutionalization of the elderly, the author suggests increasing life enhancing programs with preventive health care. She discusses various health and social services in New York City, including outreach projects, day care programs for the elderly, and the value of senior center-hospital cooperative services. (MF)

This presentation describes a home visiting health education program serving Mexican and Mexican-American migrant farmworkers in Florida. The purposes of the program were to educate farmworker families about pregnancy, childbirth, nutrition, and child development, and to encourage the use of preventive health care services. Home visitors were…

For organizations providing support to mental health consumers, "cultural competency," or the ability to reach out effectively and appropriately to individuals of different cultural backgrounds, is central to meeting the needs of a diverse community. The Cultural Competency Initiative, which was launched in the year 2000, assisted…

In 1995, the federal Office of Rural Health Policy awarded 3-year outreach demonstration grants to 25 projects to provide direct primary and preventive health care services to rural residents in 20 states. The grant program allows recipients to test innovative ideas against persistent problems of rural health care, such as provider shortages,…