NNLM AoU Community Award: Connecting People to Telehealth Public Library

The Lawton Public Library intends to bridge the digital divide with telehealth kiosks and programming to improve individuals’ access to health information. The primary outreach is to the medically underserved members in Comanche County. The library will connect with people experiencing homelessness, transient populations, lower income, and English as a second language speakers. The library will bridge the digital divide for marginalized populations by providing appropriate technology and technology assistance and empowering those individuals with health resources. The Lawton Public Library requests funding to provide a telehealth kiosk in its main library to serve the public for doctor visits and health training. Telemedicine is quickly becoming a common way to communicate with medical professionals. Classes led by local health professionals with the Comanche County Health Department will cover health literacy topics. Health literacy displays will feature materials from NNLM and Medline plus. These displays will promote awareness for the All of Us program. Lawton Public Library will partner with The Lawton Adult Literacy Center to identify community members that will especially benefit from one-on-one digital literacy training to better use the kiosk and health literacy materials. Initial launch of the project will focus on digital and health literacy through displays and classes in partnership with the Comanche County Health Department. In early spring 2020, the telehealth kiosk will open to the community in partnership with Lawton Community Health Center. This project will fill the divide between people and doctors, especially since covid-19’s disruption of health care delivery.