Libbey Chuy Telehealth Program Coordinator

In early 2009, the Association for Utah Community Health (AUCH) negotiated a partnership with the Utah Diabetes Center at the University of Utah to offer diabetes education classes in Spanish to patients of Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) through video-conferencing. The only Spanish-speaking Certified Diabetes Educator (CDE) in Utah works for the Utah Diabetes Center and in the past has only been able to reach patients that traveled to the center. Through this program diabetes education in Spanish has been expanded to reach clinics up to 350 miles away.

The program provides:
• Access to the only Spanish-speaking CDE in Utah;
• Opportunities for FQHCs, who have limited staff or patient education training and resources,to provide a complete diabetes education class in their own facility, reducing travel time and unfamiliarity for their patients;
• A resource to FQHCs with limited bi-lingual staff;
• Improved services to rural and far-reaching health care facilities;
• Less-expensive classes than the traditional diabetes education classes at hospitals with translators;
• Patients with the opportunity to learn diabetes management techniques in their native language.

After marketing the opportunity, in February 2009, Southwest Utah Community Health Center in St. George (SWUCHC) began offering the diabetes-education class to their Spanish-speaking patients once a month. Although SWUCHC has a mostly bilingual staff, they found it difficult to find the time and staff to provide the diabetes education their patients required to improve selfmanagement. This class was the answer for diabetes education; so far six classes have been held. Participants love the class, marvel at the opportunity to participate in a class based out of Salt Lake (200 miles away) and ask, “¿cuando seria la proxima class? (When is the next class?)” Using video-conferencing to teach diabetes education has been a success for the Utah Diabetes Center too. “We have wanted to expand our community outreach efforts for a long time, but with limited resources it didn’t seem possible. Using video-conferencing to teach what I love was a perfect opportunity,” shares Rita Ballestos, diabetes educator with the Utah Diabetes Center. The program will continue to grow, as AUCH markets the opportunity to FQHC’s in Utah and explores adding individual diabetes consultations in the future

Rita Ballestos, RN, RD, CDE teaches the monthly 2-hour diabetes education class from Salt Lake City.Rita uses food models to teach portion size and how to measure carbohydrates.

What is a FQHC? (http://bphc.hrsa.gov/about/, August 2009)

• Located in or serve a high need community (designated Medically
Underserved Area or Population).
• Governed by a community board composed of a majority (51% or more)
of health center patients who represent the population served.
• Provide comprehensive primary health care services as well as
supportive services (education, translation and transportation, etc.) that
promote access to health care.
• Provide services available to all with fees adjusted based on ability to pay.
• Meet other performance and accountability requirements regarding
administrative, clinical, and financial operations.
• Serve people with and without health insurance. The proportion of
uninsured patients of all ages was approximately 38% in 2008.