The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally reshaped healthcare, with telehealth emerging as a vital tool for delivering crucial services to patients from the comfort and safety of home.
Now, a groundbreaking new program takes this a step further in the expansion of the Home Test to Treat, an entirely virtual community health initiative offering free at-home rapid tests for COVID-19 and the flu, as well as telehealth consultations, and medication delivery for eligible participants nationwide.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP) defines a community health worker (CHW) as “a frontline public health worker who is a trusted member or has a particularly good understanding of the community served. A CHW serves as a liaison between health and social services and the community to facilitate access to services and to improve the quality and cultural competence of service delivery.”
In Arizona’s rural communities they are frequently called community health workers. In tribal nations and within the Indian Health Service, they are often known as community health representatives (CHRs). In Southern Arizona communities, they may be called promotoras or promotores.
The University of Arizona Center for Rural Health’s AZHEALTHTXT service is a bilingual information-sharing platform that disseminates timely, expert-curated, health information tailored to the unique needs of Arizonans via text messaging.
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When Integrative Touch for Kids started over 17 years ago, it brought a unique approach to treatment that made a difference in care and recovery for children and their families facing chronic health conditions.
The organization’s integrative health practitioners visited patients in pediatric hospital settings to help reduce stress through meditation, breath work, acupressure, massage, and more. Away from the hospital, they held healing retreats for children and caregivers, palliative care clinics, and community clinics with the goal of transforming trauma and ending isolation in illness.
When Holly Figueroa accepted the role of president of the Arizona Rural Health Association board of directors in July 2022, she knew the term was only a year, but hoped she could dig deep to make changes that would help the organization’s role in rural health advocacy grow in meaning and in action.
“There was a time of transition, and I didn’t always feel that I'd have the opportunity to really dig deep into what AzRHA would like to accomplish,” Figueroa said.
