Vida Sana – Healthy Life Program Introduced In New York.

A new physician-directed program designed to improve awareness, behavior, communication, and delivery of care to Latino patients has been introduced in the New York area by Pfizer Inc. Vida Sana Healthy Life helps physicians and other health care professionals who treat Hispanic patients to enhance the provider-patient relationship in order to work together to optimize health outcomes.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in its Healthy People 2010 has a goal of eliminating racial and ethnic disparities and improving overall health. The statistics are riveting:

– According to the American Heart Association, Hispanics are 36 percent less likely than non-Hispanic whites to have properly controlled cholesterol.

– Diseases of the heart and stroke are the leading causes of death for Hispanics.

– Among Hispanics ages 20-74, 24.2% of men and 22.4% of women have high blood pressure.

“The growing Hispanic population in the New York City area brings new challenges to physicians,” stated Wilfredo Talavera, MD, Director of Medicine at Cabrini Medical Center. “Among the challenges we face is learning to communicate with Latino patients in a manner that respects and understands our patients’ cultural sensitivities and what motivates them. It is an integral part of the total patient care. If done properly, both the patient and the physician win.”

In New York City more than 1.5 million people, have trouble speaking English, with the data suggesting that immigrant groups with the highest number of births have the highest rates of difficulty with English. Cultural proficiency is a concern of the American Medical Association, American Academy of Family Physicians which has developed a handbook, and the American Medical Student Association which is monitoring this issue closely. Among the components of the Pfizer Vida Sana Healthy Life program is a cultural proficiency training module. The program also offers bilingual patient education materials and screening tools and bilingual provider-and-patient communications tools.