Urban cities have many broken support structures, and when we went looking for a way to deliver health care to the cities underserved populations, we saw that the churches were one of the few institutions that maintained a direct and integral communication channel with their population - If the pastor or the imam asks his congregation to get a blood pressure test, well they march right out there and do it! We hope to expand the reach of the program to different faith groups, but that is only the starting point, we don't want to leave anyone out. Already we have looked at how to make available to business and industry (who hold similar sway with their constituencies) to put the kiosks in public places. We are currently working with HAP to install some trial kiosks in automotive facilities, pharmacies and malls. Even the city of Detroit has expressed interest in putting the kiosks in pubic facilities as an outreach from the city.
However, I have to hand it to the faith community, these pastors have taken the initiative (and are spending their own dimes) to deliver a health care message backed up with drives, nursing, counseling and community support that we wanted to applaud and foster. By giving the churches these additional tools (the initial development cost would be too much for a local church, but once built any church with a computer could afford to have one) we are building on the good work already out there - it looked like by adding a little we would see a lot of return.
It was envisioned not to support a particular faith or belief (every well grounded faith contributes to the building of solid social structure and stability) but to leverage the infrastructure that was already in place and had demonstrated efficacy.
We have been inundated with requests for the kiosks and are looking at how to grow the program in a way that will reward and acknowledge the hard work already done by these powerful building blocks of society without creating an undue financial burden. We are constantly looking for funding to build more modules and fund the kiosks where the software resides.
jackb - Detroit, MI

This is a great idea. There has been much evidence based data that providing health kiosks in places where people are "waiting" or are otherwise engaged in non-health related issues can be very effective. I would suggest that instead of creating new modules on health topics, you spend some time researching existing health modules. I bet you could find one that you could adapt for your congregations, with permission of course.
Best of luck, Deb

Deb Levine, Exec. Director
ISIS, Inc.
www.isis-inc.org

I have to ask you, if your faith based initiative is focused strictly on patrons of faith based membership?

I am disturbed by the central focus of your program being a religiously based offering. I fear that the way your program is presented, that only people who are aligned with your faith based initiative will receive the benefits of health care.

In other words, people who might otherwise benefit from your program will not, because they will not approach it due to it's religious connotations. They will wonder, "Would you require a beneficiary of your program to enroll in an acceptable faith based community?" and will wonder if you will attempt to "up sell" them to enroll in a religious program in order to benefit from health care benefits.

How would you cater / market your program to a non-compliant faith based believer (say a Muslim or a Buddhist or an atheist?) How would you reach out to such faiths, and convince them to use your faith based program? Have you historical experience in successfully accomplishing this?