Our 15th Anniversary – The U-M Women’s Health Resource Center Celebrates Fifteen Years of Empowering Women
The University of Michigan Women’s Health Resource Center is much more than just a physical location. Located on the first floor of the Taubman Health Center, the resource center is an easy stop for women visiting the obstetrics and gynecology clinic and a popular place for patients and their families who want to use the computers to access health information or check out a book from the Lending Library. However, many of the women who have benefitted from the center, have never set foot in the space. Since it was created in 1995, the center’s staff and volunteers have dedicated themselves to helping women receive credible health information by constantly adapting resources to make it easier for women to receive information. Whether it is a health seminar in one of the communities served by the University of Michigan Health System, classes to teach techniques for calming babies, or a phone call or an e-mail request for health information, the resource center helps thousands of women each year.
This February, the University of Michigan Health System is celebrating the women’s health resource center’s fifteenth anniversary of empowering women by providing them with credible health information.
The developments of the last fifteen years include a spectacular increase in the requests for information. In the last seven years alone, the number of information requests has increased by 100%, and so has the ability to quickly respond to those requests. In the past, the resource center mailed packets of health information to women in response to information requests. While requests for health information have increased, so has the need to provide that information immediately. Because women can find health information online, Debbi Smith, Coordinator, Women’s Health Resource Center, says that it is very important to provide information quickly and to direct women to credible websites .“Because we live in such an immediate world, we can access the information very quickly. It’s our job to ensure women obtain their health information from reliable sources.”
Patricia A. Warner, associate hospital director and chief administrative officer, C. S. Mott Children's Hospital and Von Voigtlander Women's Hospital, says, “The women’s health resource center is important as an access point for assistance in getting into services needed and exploring accurate health information that is based on science and peer review.” The resource center helps separate fact from fiction. Warner says, “With so many web pages available to the public, it is often difficult to know what is accurate and current information. The health information provided on the women’s health program web page is approved by our many specialists in the health system.”
Volunteers and interns have always been critical to running the resource center. Smith says, “Without volunteers and student interns we wouldn’t be able to do what we do as quickly and efficiently.” The decision to staff with volunteers and interns is fiscally responsible, but Smith says it also makes the resource center more dynamic with the input of women with fresh ideas and interests. For example a student intern created the process for managing inventory, labeling, and creating a user friendly system that advanced the browsing library to a lending library. Additionally, one of the volunteers, a former librarian, suggested that if women can’t find the book they’re interested in at the UMHS Women’s Health Resource Center, resource center volunteers could find the book at a public library and have it held for the woman requesting the book.
Health outreach has always been one of the primary purposes of the UMHS Women’s Health Resource Center. Smith is appreciative of all of the health experts who are happy to share their time and expertise at Women’s Health Seminars occurring in the community four to six times a year.
In addition, the Women’s Health Resource Center also coordinates monthly Happiest Baby on the Block classes, an outpatient lactation clinic and health sessions during the lunch hour for University of Michigan faculty and staff. The lunch time health seminars have been so well received, that starting this summer, the center will partner with area businesses to bring health education to women at their work places. If your business is interested in hosting a health seminar for your female employees, please contact Debbi Smith at 734-936-8886.
However a woman wants to access information – in person, by phone or online, the staff and volunteers at the University of Michigan Health System Women’s Health Resource Center want to make sure women know about the variety of resources that are available to them.
