CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The Global Institute for Hispanic Health announced Thursday that they would be working with Texas A&M University in College Station to get more Coastal Bend residents involved when it comes to testing out new ways to fight diseases.
According to Dr. Jaime Fergie, the Institute is a joint venture that is an investment in the future health of South Texas residents.
"There is a collaboration between our physicians at Driscoll and researchers from the university. We're looking at a variety of problems. We're looking at asthma in our community. We're looking at prenatal issues with our maternal-fetal group. There are multiple things we're doing, and all of them are going to bring benefit to our local community," Fergie said.
With an infusion of funding and the partnership between Driscoll Children's Hospital and Texas A&M University, the Global Institute for Hispanic Health was launched in 2016 with a primary focus of bringing research to South Texas.
"We learn about different conditions. We learn about medications, and we offer the opportunity to patients to use medications, new medications, that are not yet available," Fergie said.
One prominent study will target one of the most prevalent diseases in South Texas -- diabetes.
"For an example of the studies we are doing here, it's a national study on a new drug for diabetes. That's been used in adults but not children," Fergie said.
The study is excellent news for organizations such as Healthy South Texas.
"And with the Hispanic population we have a 20 percent of adults living in south texas have diabetes that's almost nearly double the state average," regional director Starr Flores said.
Healthy South Texas will only enhance what is currently available to us right now.
"Being able to have different medications available to them it's a great breakthrough not only that it will help us as a health education organization," Flores said.
According to Fergie, physicians and their staff will learn new procedures and new medications, while patients will benefit from the new interventions.
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