Information about the ReACH Center

Mission

To promote the health of South Texas residents, especially its majority Hispanic population, through comparative effectiveness research. ReACH brings together researchers from diverse disciplines and community partners to evaluate quality of care and implement culturally appropriate models of care that will result in optimal health outcomes.

Long Term Vision

ReACH’s institutional collaborators are joining forces to identify systems of care that meet the needs our heterogeneous patient population in South Texas as well as contribute to improving the quality and outcomes of care for all Americans. ReACH will advance the methodologies that underpin comparative effectiveness research in order to inform studies that define evidence-based, high quality care with judicious use of resources. The ultimate success of the Center will be measured in sustainable improvements in health care delivery and disease prevention in our community.   

Resources

ReACH has 18 Scholars who are PhDs and MDs from diverse disciplines including statistics, epidemiology, health services research, informatics, economics, psychology, anthropology, community engagement, and behavioral medicine.  Medical specialties represented by ReACH Scholars include; family medicine, general internal medicine, pediatrics, and infectious diseases. The Center is guided by community advisors to ensure that we study and implement models of care that will result in optimal health outcomes. ReACH provided analytics support for University Health Systems and has created three longitudinal databases for research and administrative purposes: diabetes, HIV, and seniors who may be eligible for PSA testing.  ReACH has also created a longitudinal database of patients with diabetes for UTHSCSA.  All of these databases include demographics, medications, relevant laboratory tests and results, visit encounters, consultation services, and UHS data includes hospitalizations.

Organization, Structure, and Governence

The REsearch to Advance Community Health (ReACH) Center is multidisciplinary collaboration of researchers and clinicians from three institutions including the University of Texas Health Science Centers at San Antonio, the University Health System in San Antonio, and the University of Texas School of Public Health. The Center's Director reports to the Vice President for Research at the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio.