04 November 2014 by Chris MacKay
Dear friends -
How time flies. Can’t believe that it is now almost a year since our initial meeting at Worcester in February last year. In the intervening time we have seen more groups in and out of La Romana - our own group visiting in August this year. We have had many successes in 2014, including:
The Hypertension Working Group continues to complete the initial data review and request for proposal and hopes to have something back shortly to help guide that discussion.
I recently also reached out to Dr. Kevin D’Angelo about possible collaborations on pursuing a dental grant to support ongoing dental clinics in the area, for which we put together some documentation.
Members of our Worcester collaborative have also opened conversations between our collaborative and the wider batey health community of La Romana, to try to put together a La Romana based symposium with a broader base of local and foreign stakeholders for November 2015. Lots of exciting initiatives going on!
In the spirit of Worcester from February 2014 I am writing to see if there would be interest in having another get-together in early 2015 (perhaps in January) to revisit where we are in collaborating at Good Sam. We have seen some early outputs and fruits around working together on hypertension. There is lots more to be looked at especially in terms of the referral system, continuity of care, discussions around an electronic medical record, capacity building and development, measurement of impact around investments in the hospital, and much more.
While I would love an excuse to return to Massachusetts I am also open to the idea of hosting such a get-together elsewhere, but wanted to see thoughts if UMass were interested in hosting (or somewhere else in the New England area) and/or if there is interest from groups to get together again.
To that end, our group (The 53rd Week) would like to tentatively proposed Jan 23-25, 2015 weekend as the next meeting of the Hospital Buen Samaritano group coalition for our annual update and forum - location TBD.
Welcome thoughts from folks.
Best, Lawrence
Want to join in: