Yvonne Sylla

Lawrenceville, GA (USA)
Role(s):
Select

Diverse Health Solutions, Inc

Find More Startups Startup
Location: Lawrenceville
Industry: Non Profit
Year Founded: 2009
Number Employees: 1-10 people
Description: Diverse Health Solutions, Inc Executive Summary Connecting Lifestyle, Health and Sustainability: A Mobile Bus Program Hopes to Reach out to Specific Community Health Issues At non-profit Diverse Health Solutions, our mission statement promotes “Healing, health, and wellness for the whole person.” We know that patients who will come through our mobile doors can benefit tremendously from this approach to healthcare. But it doesn’t end there. What about the people in our community who have not yet accessed our mobile unit’s hospital’s services or don‘t know about it? We believe that we have a commitment to them as well. That’s why our mission statement also includes the phrase “working together with the community”. Diverse Health Solutions’ Screenings N’ Health program is an excellent example of this commitment. Through an approach that expands the boundaries of traditional healthcare by including complementary medical therapies, Screenings N’ Health provides important health screenings and teaches urban and rural residents about the connection between their lifestyle behaviors and the impact on their health. A Simple Beginning The impetus for a Screenings N’ Health mobile bus was an ordinary circumstance - a health fair. In 2008, the city of Atlanta sponsored a health fair for local residents of which African Americans make up approximately 50+ percent of the urban Atlanta community, a large contingency of underserved Latino residents and local Whites. At this health fair and at other screenings in the city and in rural Georgia communities which included members of all races, we discovered that the majority of the participants in poor health were low income, and new immigrants whose lifestyles put them at higher risk for health problems such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes and AIDS. Some of the more prevalent behavior issues included: High levels of stress - Stress is exacerbated by the intergenerational conflict faced by poverty, lack of education and immigrants raising their children in the dominant popular culture. Lack of exercise - regular exercise is generally not part of the lifestyle. Poor food choices - The typical diet is high in fat, sugar, and calories. Unprotected Sex - Multiple Sex Partners - Understanding the devastating consequences of HIV and STD transmission and how to prevent it resulting in behavioral changes that are consistent. Substance abuse - preventable disease risk that leads to an increased risk of heart disease, stroke, STD’s, HIV, lung cancer and lung disease among many other symptoms. Most troubling of all was that health fair participants didn’t see the connection between what they did and how healthy they were. To compound the problem, a majority had never even accessed the health care system unless they had to because of an emergency. As a result, Diverse Health Solutions leaders decided that we needed to offer better health intervention services to those underserved communities, and meet them where they are. A Unique Approach Diverse Health Solutions is teaming up with a number of organizations for information and outreach: the American Medical Society, American Holistic Medical Association, the Center for Disease Control, the Georgia Health Network, Georgia Latino/Hispanic Health Agenda and Leadership Project, Hispanic Health Coalition of Georgia, Latino Health Network, The African American Health Information and Resource Center, and the African American Health Network. We are discussing ongoing strategies that led us to the formation of our mobile bus unit of Screenings N’ Health, a program that focuses on health screens for high blood pressure, hormonal deficiency, diabetes, AIDS and STDs. This mobile unit will be staffed by a Physician or Physician Assistant and/or a Nurse Practitioner as well as a Registered Nurse and Social Worker/Educator. We will also educate participants about cardiac fitness, stress management, HIV/AIDS/STD prevention, smoking cessation, exercise, and proper nutrition. With the help of our community liaison coordinators, we will identify local clinics to follow up with patients who have been seen in our mobile clinic. We will also identify citizens in each community we visit who want to teach their peers about key health issues. These volunteer health educators will be trained by a team made up of a program coordinator (manager), public health educator and consultants in their fields of specialty who will use instruction manuals with pictures and other visual aids. Armed with this training and specially developed materials written in English and Spanish, each lay educator visit’s the homes in the community and invites friends and family to hear the presentation which should be no longer that 5 minutes. They are left with an assortment of materials that pertain to health and resources in their respective communities. This grassroots method is expected to reach more that 500 people each year! The lay educator approach is particularly suited to this diverse culture because people can learn better by representatives of their own culture or in their own language, and because informal communication works well in a community that has extended families. Because Screenings N’ Health implements an approach that is tailored to the community, participants will become more open to making lifestyle changes that improve their health, such as managing stress, exercising, easting less fat, reading food labels, practicing safe sex, learning about community resources and getting regular physicals. In fact, more than 90 per cent of respondents in a 2002 random survey by Healthcare Executive, the official magazine of the American College of Healthcare Executives. (Vol.18, No. 6): 52-53, indicated that the home presentation and other program features have positively affected their lifestyle. Goals Diverse Health Solutions’ Screenings N’ Health has an existing set of desired outputs, outcomes, and impact that include the following: Achieve 100 Percent ratio of screenings of individuals who enter our Mobile Unit. Report Test Results - Provide Statistical Summaries. Reduce incidence of undiagnosed, Diabetes, High Blood Pressure, Heart Disease, HIV, and STD‘s. Promote and provide appropriate health information and education, utilizing conventional and complementary medical practices. Eliminate barriers to access to health. Effectively use and coordinate the expertise and resources of coalition partners. Our primary focus is to champion primary prevention by utilizing activities that will reduce the probability that a disease will develop at some point in the future. The Next Step Diverse Health Solutions plans to use the Screenings N’ Health model to provide a much-needed alternative to the current patchwork of independently developed health encounters, practices, and requirements, providing patients access to health care and screenings and ultimately, healthy outcomes. Yvonne Sylla Executive Director Diverse Health Solutions, Inc. (Phone # removed)(URL removed)