National team aids
community clinics
Clinics in low-income neighborhoods are valuable assets to any community, but when the clinic administration fails to adequately report the value of services rendered, funding becomes critical.
Antonio Furino, PhD, director of the Center for Health Economics and Policy (CHEP) at the Health Science Center, and other co-principal investigators who are members of a national research team, have developed three programs to aid community clinics and other small organizations in this effort.
The "Effectiveness Guidance System" (EGS) assists in monitoring, planning and effectively reporting challenges and successes of small organizations and is a powerful interactive software package, according to Dr. Furino. Developed with a grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, EGS is the first software package ever designed specifically for community-based organizations in the health field.
The "Health Information NETwork" (HINET), a computer-based information management system, was created in 1991 and is being perfected at CHEP. HINET was designed for rapid access to reliable and continuously updated information from small geographic areas and is the only comprehensive, user-friendly, county data source in the state. HINET is maintained with partial support from the Area Health Education Center, the South Texas Health Research Center, and more recently, the South Texas/Border Region Health Education Initiative of the Health Science Center.
Don R. Miller, PhD, assistant director for Health Information at CHEP, is manager of HINET and is responsible for its current development.
A study titled the "North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the United States/Mexico Border Health: Preparing for the Impact on HRSA-Sponsored Programs" began about a year ago under the direction of Dr. Furino, with David C. Warner, PhD, a professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs in Austin, heading the research.
The project is a pilot study for assessing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and barriers of the programs funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the Department of Health and Human Services on the U.S./Mexico border region. The assessment covers 11 counties, stretching from Brownsville in Cameron County to Del Rio in Val Verde County.
"This study, which describes some important changes and identifies strategies for the Health Resources and Services Administration, is now being disseminated among individuals involved in the economic and social development of the U.S./Mexico border," Dr. Furino reported.
Dr. Furino is professor of economics in the departments of family practice and general dentistry at the Health Science Center, and a senior research fellow at the IC2 Institute of The University of Texas at Austin. He also evaluates national, state and local programs linking resources of academic health centers to industry and communities.
