Connect to your Health Wellness Fair

As one of the largest consumers of healthcare, senior 88 are often left behind as new technologies are introduced to support patient engagement. The goal of The Connect to your Health wellness fair project was to provide an interactive educational experience to connect the 89 living in the Town of Southampton to online health-related resources. A collaborative effort between Stony Brook University, Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, and the Town of Southampton Senior Centers helped drive this project forward. This team developed and implemented an innovative approach to encourage 89 to become familiar with technology and use it to access health education resources. Through the health fair, approximately 45 89 were provided with hands-on learning opportunities to learn the basic functions of iPad technology and how to use them to access reliable health information resources such as Medline Plus. Subsequently, 15 iPads were donated to the senior centers to replace existing outdated technology at the senior center. Additional interactive sessions were also provided bimonthly to increase proficiency and self-efficacy in using iPads and gaining access to health information resources. The overall aim of this event was to create awareness of the available online resources to assist 89 with engaging in their health maintenance and to increase health literacy.