HBI connects resource to need. The economic and cultural divide that exists between the rich and poor of the world has never been greater. Today, millions of lives are in a constant state of struggle. We believe in the power of bringing together resources through the development of coalitions and partnerships. We seek to identify clear mechanisms for connecting resources to needs and building bridges for change. We work to showcase the needs of communities and draw greater media and governmental attention to the plight of the poor and underserved.
The Ines Project for medically fragile children
The Ines project began when Dr. Wayne Centrone, Executive Director of Health Bridges International (HBI) met a little girl named Ines. She had a life threatening skin disease. She was living in extreme poverty, and despite her mothers best efforts, she was unable to Access appropriate and adequate medical care. Ines is an example of a medically fragile child; these are children with complex medical conditions that need multiple health care providers, specialists, and around the clock care, to assist in daily living. This coordinated care is lifesaving, but much more difficult to access in poverty.
The goal of Ines Project for Medically Fragile Children, named after the first child enrolled into the project, is to improve the health of economically marginalized, medically complex children in the metropolitan area of the city of Lima, Peru. Despite the existence of a health care system that aims to cover children's basic health needs, often the overall care of these children is substandard due to a host of logistical, financial and cultural obstacles. Through advocacy, education, and targeted resource allocation we seek to maximize the patients' appropriate utilization of the existing state health care system.
The Ines Project model uses a team of Health Ambassadors (leaders selected from the local communities of the project), along with a supervising nurse and consulting pediatric physician to identify children needing attention. We then identify the specific deficits in the child's care and aid the family in finding the appropriate solution, usually within the structure of the state sponsored system. The Health Ambassadors have contact with the patients at least weekly. The nurse attends patients as determined by their particular needs. Our goal is not to provide unsustainable direct care, but to affect a re-orientation in each family's situation to promote self-advocacy and effective navigation of the health system.
The development of the Ines Project was based on the combined experience of the health care and community workers attempting to affect change for medically complex children. We have been working on this project for approximately 3 years. HBI decided that a more formalized, collaborative approach to the challenge of caring for medically complex children would be appropriate. The Ines Project is designed to improve the quality of life for children and young adults that participate in our program. The program also helps the families gain skills to advocate for the health and needs of their chronically ill children.
The Ines project began when Dr. Wayne Centrone, Executive Director of Health Bridges International (HBI) met a little girl named Ines. She had a life threatening skin disease. She was living in extreme poverty, and despite her mothers best efforts, she was unable to Access appropriate and adequate medical care. Ines is an example of a medically fragile child; these are children with complex medical conditions that need multiple health care providers, specialists, and around the clock care, to assist in daily living. This coordinated care is lifesaving, but much more difficult to access in poverty.
The goal of Ines Project for Medically Fragile Children, named after the first child enrolled into the project, is to improve the health of economically marginalized, medically complex children in the metropolitan area of the city of Lima, Peru. Despite the existence of a health care system that aims to cover children's basic health needs, often the overall care of these children is substandard due to a host of logistical, financial and cultural obstacles. Through advocacy, education, and targeted resource allocation we seek to maximize the patients' appropriate utilization of the existing state health care system.
The Ines Project model uses a team of Health Ambassadors (leaders selected from the local communities of the project), along with a supervising nurse and consulting pediatric physician to identify children needing attention. We then identify the specific deficits in the child's care and aid the family in finding the appropriate solution, usually within the structure of the state sponsored system. The Health Ambassadors have contact with the patients at least weekly. The nurse attends patients as determined by their particular needs. Our goal is not to provide unsustainable direct care, but to affect a re-orientation in each family's situation to promote self-advocacy and effective navigation of the health system.
The development of the Ines Project was based on the combined experience of the health care and community workers attempting to affect change for medically complex children. We have been working on this project for approximately 3 years. HBI decided that a more formalized, collaborative approach to the challenge of caring for medically complex children would be appropriate. The Ines Project is designed to improve the quality of life for children and young adults that participate in our program. The program also helps the families gain skills to advocate for the health and needs of their chronically ill children.
Emergency Response Together
Medical emergencies occur everyday. In many environments, pre-hospital trained emergency medical responders provide a critical link to hospital-based life saving care. In Peru, the training of pre-hospital emergency medical responders has been isolated to large metropolitan environments and performed by volunteer firefighters without standardized training. Developing and implementing a standardized training curriculum for pre-hospital emergency medical responders is a key pathway for ensuring all citizens have full access to life saving emergency medical care.
A training curriculum has been introduced in the city of Lima to train firefighters in emergency medical responses. The training, based on a standardized and validated United States Agency for International Development (USAID) emergency medical response curriculum, is the only standardized model for training firefighters in Peru in pre-hospital emergency medical response. The Emergency Response Together pilot project will expand the “Lima” Emergency Medical Responder training for all firefighters in Arequipa. Completion of the Emergency Response Together training will allow the firefighters to provide consistent and standardized medical assessment and care for injured members of the public, visitors, other Emergency Responders and municipal workers. In addition, the development and implementation of a standardized train-the-trainer curriculum will allow for scaling of trainings to other geographic areas in the country of Peru.
Working in collaboration, a team of subject matter experts, implementation strategists, emergency medicine specialists, and in-country firefighters will plan, develop and implement a pilot project built to - Train all the firefighters in the Arequipa Department (region) with the same Emergency Responder Training course and standards as provided in Lima Training course; Plan, implement and evaluate an initial training to be conducted under the auspices of a training consortium made up of Health Bridges International and New York City Long Island Jewish/Northwell Emergency Department, and Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) in partnership with the Compania de Bomberos Arequipa; and, Plan, implement and evaluate a train-the-trainer curriculum. Subsequent trainings will be conducted by local fire department certified Emergency Medical Responder instructors as accredited by the Bomberos Arequipa.
Medical emergencies occur everyday. In many environments, pre-hospital trained emergency medical responders provide a critical link to hospital-based life saving care. In Peru, the training of pre-hospital emergency medical responders has been isolated to large metropolitan environments and performed by volunteer firefighters without standardized training. Developing and implementing a standardized training curriculum for pre-hospital emergency medical responders is a key pathway for ensuring all citizens have full access to life saving emergency medical care.
A training curriculum has been introduced in the city of Lima to train firefighters in emergency medical responses. The training, based on a standardized and validated United States Agency for International Development (USAID) emergency medical response curriculum, is the only standardized model for training firefighters in Peru in pre-hospital emergency medical response. The Emergency Response Together pilot project will expand the “Lima” Emergency Medical Responder training for all firefighters in Arequipa. Completion of the Emergency Response Together training will allow the firefighters to provide consistent and standardized medical assessment and care for injured members of the public, visitors, other Emergency Responders and municipal workers. In addition, the development and implementation of a standardized train-the-trainer curriculum will allow for scaling of trainings to other geographic areas in the country of Peru.
Working in collaboration, a team of subject matter experts, implementation strategists, emergency medicine specialists, and in-country firefighters will plan, develop and implement a pilot project built to - Train all the firefighters in the Arequipa Department (region) with the same Emergency Responder Training course and standards as provided in Lima Training course; Plan, implement and evaluate an initial training to be conducted under the auspices of a training consortium made up of Health Bridges International and New York City Long Island Jewish/Northwell Emergency Department, and Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) in partnership with the Compania de Bomberos Arequipa; and, Plan, implement and evaluate a train-the-trainer curriculum. Subsequent trainings will be conducted by local fire department certified Emergency Medical Responder instructors as accredited by the Bomberos Arequipa.
| hbi_emergency_response_together_jan2018.pdf |
Research
HBI is fully committed to demonstrating the effectiveness of our projects. To this end, we assure formative evaluation plans for all of our work. Evaluating the impact and documenting the effectiveness of all our activities. We work in collaboration with researchers from a broad range of academic institutions to prepare the methods and structures that best evaluate our programs and projects. We've partnered on a wide variety of research projects including:
HBI is fully committed to demonstrating the effectiveness of our projects. To this end, we assure formative evaluation plans for all of our work. Evaluating the impact and documenting the effectiveness of all our activities. We work in collaboration with researchers from a broad range of academic institutions to prepare the methods and structures that best evaluate our programs and projects. We've partnered on a wide variety of research projects including:
- Ines Project for Medically Fragile Children: A collaborative project working to develop a care advocacy model for assisting families living in extreme poverty in the pueblos jovenes of Lima, Peru in better accessing and utilizing health care services for medically fragile children. The project is under phase I study to demonstrate suitability for scaling to other communities and countries. We are working in partnership with evaluators from Yale University.
- Community Assessment of Healthcare Resources and Experiences (CARE): Community based research studies (four in total) in partnership with the University of North Carolina (Wilmington) to assess healthcare access, utilization, and satisfaction in a peri-urban and rural communities around Peru.
- Service Learning Research Study: A mixed methods participatory research study in collaboration with Linfield College School of Nursing to explore how service learning that involves American and Peruvian nursing students working together during a Jan term service learning course will influence their perceptions of what it means to be a nurse and their future career choices for the purpose of enhancing cross-cultural nursing education. The study represents a collaboration between HBI, Linfield College School of Nursing (Portland, OR) and Universidad Católica de Santa Maria (Arequipa, Peru).
- Street Youth Serving Organizations in Lima, Perú: A community based survey project was to collect information on the organizations working with marginalized and abandoned youth toward the creation of an ongoing forum for communication between Lima-wide health and social service organizations that assist youth abandoned to the streets or experiencing homelessness in order to better scale service delivery and to work together to solve common problems. The project was facilitated in collaboration with a undergraduate student intern from the University of Michigan.
Connect with HBI
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Post Office Box 8813, Portland, Oregon 97207 | info@HBInt.org
Post Office Box 8813, Portland, Oregon 97207 | info@HBInt.org