Portal de Salud, a health ministry and Georgia non-profit organization, is dedicated to promoting the well-being of Hispanic/Latino families through health education and improved access to primary and preventive care services. One of the organization's primary initiatives, the community wellness program, operates three times a month, facilitating access to health services, resources, and offering free screenings and health education. Annually, this program, in addition to Portal’s annual health fair, serves approximately 30,000 people and 8,000 families, with 80% being uninsured and the remaining 20% largely underinsured. Addressing the significant health challenge posed by Cardiovascular Disease (CVD), which remains the leading cause of death among the U.S. Hispanic population, Portal de Salud conducts screenings for various CVD risk factors, including blood pressure, BMI, fasting and non-fasting blood glucose, HbA1C, and cholesterol. These metrics serve as a foundation for engaging individuals in discussions about lifestyle modifications and connecting them to suitable primary care services. Through our monthly volunteering, Emory School of Medicine students gain cultural competency development and practice motivational interviewing skills and preventative medicine within the Hispanic community of Gwinnett County, GA. All Portal de Salud programing is open to all students at Emory University School of Medicine, making it a unique opportunity for interprofessional experiential learning.
Learning to use our point-of-care instruments to measure blood lipids and glucose can be quite challenging for first-time users. We hope to fundraise enough money to purchase supplies (lancets, alcohol swabs, capillary tubes, CardioChek strips) to be able to practice on campus prior to our monthly clinics. The more comfortable our volunteers are with their technique, the better their learning experience and the patient's experience! We also hope to purchase back-up kits for testing blood lipids and glucose in order to provide point-of-care labs to all patients we are able to see per evening, in the event that our kits on-site malfunction. We use a CardioChek Plus Analyzer and A1C analyzer provided by Portal de Salud, and we are in the process of purchasing our own instruments (for which we have already secured funds), but we hope to fundraise for the one-time-use supplies to train on campus with your generous donation!
