Community Outreach

Linking South Carolina Free Clinics to Quality Health Information

woman sitting at health information kiosk

The goal of this project is to enhance the patient education efforts at free medical clinics in South Carolina. During this project, the library partnered with the following ten clinics: the Good Samaritan Clinic in Columbia, Mercy Medical Clinic in Florence, Greenville Free Medical Clinic, St. Luke's Free Medical Clinic in Spartanburg, Good Samaritan Medical Clinic in Chester, Good Neighbor Medical Clinic  in Beaufort, Orangeburg-Calhoun Free Medical Clinic in Orangeburg, Free Medical Clinic of Darlington and its satellite location in Hartsville, and Greater Greenwood United Ministry Free Medical/Dental Clinic and Clinica Gratis Free Clinic, both located in Greenwood.

This project strengthened the patient education efforts at these clinics by providing computer equipment to each clinic and increasing awareness and use of MedlinePlus, the National Library of Medicine’s premier consumer health information resource. Project librarians conducted MedlinePlus training sessions at the clinics and created customized patient education web pages that link to MedlinePlus content, such as health topic pages and interactive health tutorials.

The library used project funds to purchase computer equipment that can be used for sharing health information in the waiting room, one-on-one patient education sessions, or group patient education classes. Seven of the clinics are using LCD monitors to show MedlinePlus, and two clinics are using a projector and screen for the same purpose. Two clinics are using a health information kiosk to provide access to MedlinePlus content to patients in the waiting room.

 

This project has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under Contract No. N01-LM-6-3502 with the University of Maryland Baltimore.