April 7, 2021: In a unique upstate cross-regional collaboration, 12 Western New York health serving organizations have been selected to participate in the Health Literacy CALL to Action Training program, funded by the Health Foundation for Western and Central New York. Low health literacy is a barrier to the health of a community and raises the costs of healthcare.  Helping community members increase their capacity to obtain, communicate, process and understand health information is a significant way to decrease healthcare costs and hospitalizations. 

Initially developed in Central New York through the Medicaid redesign efforts to reduce avoidable hospital use by 25 percent, the CALL to Action program seeks to improve how health literacy is taught to community members by health and health care providers. Participants undergo 21 hours of virtual training to become Master Trainers so that they can disseminate their learnings to their own and other organizations in their communities. This “train-the-trainer” model has shown success in helping patients improve their ability to better manage their health and treatment and, says Sue Ellen Stuart, executive director of the Visiting Nurse Services of Ithaca and co-writer for the grant.  “With COVID-19, increasing health literacy throughout our communities may be needed now more than ever.  It’s what helps patients understand the risks of the virus and the protocols needed to fight it.”  

The following organizations will be taking part in the upcoming training, beginning in April. All are members of or have a work-relation to the Fellows Action Network, a program of the HFWCNY and its Health Leadership Fellows program: Population Health Collaborative; Daemen College; D'Youville College; BestSelf Behavioral Health; Healthy Community Alliance; Buffalo Prenatal Network; Harvest House; Jericho Road Community Health Center; Catholic Charities of Buffalo; People Inc.; ARC of Genesee Orleans; and Southern Tier Health Care Systems, Inc.