Dawn Clinic Website Renovation Project

Posted in: #CC/Academic List, #Health Interest List, #Health Sciences List, #Public/K-12 List, All Members

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NNLM Region 4 is super excited to be awarding an Engagement and Outreach Award to the Dawn Clinic in Aurora, Colorado. DAWN Clinic is an interprofessional student-run free clinic (SRFC) that serves uninsured patients from the Aurora community. It is in the heart of one of Colorado’s most economically challenged and underserved regions. Their goals are two-fold: to provide the best healthcare possible to neighbors in need, and to provide an opportunity for health professions students to collaborate with and learn from each other while serving the community. The clinic is open to uninsured adults living in Aurora.  

There are some major updates that need to be made to the DAWN Clinic website in order to provide reliable information and resources to patients. Presently, health information is disseminated to patients as black and white paper handouts. They have limited storage space for paper documents at the clinic site, so these are printed on demand. Patients regularly ask for health information and are happy to receive these resources, so it is suspected that an online version would provide a more engaging and fruitful learning experience for them. One of the resources that will be incorporated is access to health information via the NLM Medlineplus.gov and Medlineplus.gov En Español platforms. 

DAWN Clinic will help advance the mission of NNLM with this project by supporting the strategic plan to “Reach more people in more ways through enhanced dissemination and engagement.” This is an opportunity to serve underrepresented populations with few resources and low health literacy by delivering personalized and actionable health information. Giving patients direct access to Medlineplus.gov empowering them to learn more about their medical conditions, medications, and treatment options. They will have the opportunity to improve their health literacy and access Medlineplus.gov in a setting that is meaningful with the help of primary care providers at DAWN Clinic.  

We look forward to hearing more about the success Dawn Clinic will have with this project.  

If you have any ideas of projects like these, please reach out to us. We want to hear from you!  

Yamila M. El-Khayat serves as Communications and Citizen Science Specialist at NNLM (Network of the National Library of Medicine) Region 4. She has a passion for health information and working with all communities in particular traditionally marginalized communities. Yamila is a medical librarian at the University of Arizona. In working as a Librarian, she has been determined to increase health literacy to better serve the needs of the Latino and Native American populations, improving access to information related to the health of Native American, Hispanic, Border, Evidence-based, intercultural, bilingual and culturally appropriate. She has experience training information for clinicians, students, and community members, including health promoters/ “Promotores de Salud”.