Hunterdon Medical Center Foundation (HMCF) has been awarded a grant from Johnson and Johnson and the Community Foundation of New Jersey to support a pilot program that will reduce language barriers and improve health outcomes of the Lambertville Latino population. The objective of the program is to shift healthcare usage from acute care treatment to prevention and maintenance. By introducing bilingual healthcare professionals into family practice settings, this pilot program will increase patient outreach and education to a growing Latino population in the Lambertville area. It will also help establish a “medical home” for these patients by building trust within the Spanish-speaking community. The objective of the program is to shift healthcare usage from acute care treatment to prevention and maintenance. It is anticipated that the program will be replicated in any family practice setting that is located in areas where there are higher concentrations of the Latino families such as Flemington, Whitehouse and Clinton.

This grant represents the third year of support from Johnson and Johnson (J and J) and the Community Foundation of New Jersey (CFNJ). In previous years, J and J and CFNJ partnered with HMCF to help establish a Prenatal Health Literacy program to provide prenatal education and care to pregnant non-English speaking women through their obstetricians. Through this program, Hunterdon Medical Center has established a relationship with the Flemington area non-English speaking population resulting in many mothers seeking their prenatal care much earlier in their pregnancies. Additionally, this program has increased patient access to healthcare and prenatal education via the translation of English educational material and preadmission forms into Spanish.

For more information about this program, please contact Connie Bruno at 908-788-6134.