Texas Cancer Information Earns ”Best Site Design”
Texas Cancer Information (TCI) earned national recognition with a “Best Site Design” award at a Nov. 11 awards conference in Orlando, receiving third place honors in the “Consumer Disease-Focused Site” classification.
Criteria for Best Site Design category included:
- Is the Web design unusual, attractive and engaging?
- Does the design facilitate access to key site information?
- Does it provide strong branding and excellent usability?
The competition included more than 1,100 entries nationwide. An independent panel of 114 judges rated each Web site based on a standard of Internet excellence and how they compared with others in their group classification.
eHealthcare Strategy Trends, a leading Internet resource published by Health Care Communications, Rye, NY, sponsors the annual
eHealthcare Leadership Awards. This year’s conference marks the organization’s 12th annual recognition ceremony.
Congratulations to all the TCI staff, and our thanks to the TCI Advisory Committee for their support and guidance.
Back to the Top
Texas Cancer Facts & Figures 2008 – Enhanced Publication Now Online
The new Texas Cancer Facts & Figures is now available! Texas Cancer Information, in cooperation with the American Cancer Society, High Plains Division and the Texas Cancer Registry, Texas Department of State Health Services, is providing an enhanced version of Texas Cancer Facts & Figures, including:
- Bookmarks and linked table of contents for easy access to topic sections, tables and figures
- Links directly from most figures and tables to Excel files containing the background data used to create them (click on the figure/table to access background data)
- Links from footnotes throughout the document to source documents
- Links to publications referenced throughout the document
- Links to collaborating agencies and other organizations mentioned in the document
Texas Cancer Facts & Figures 2008 can assist healthcare organizations, health professionals, community groups and others working to reduce Texas’ cancer burden. Policymakers, advocates and news organizations also can find detailed, easy-to-read information about cancer’s impact on Texans.
The latest publication represents the collaboration of several key Texas partners including:
Back to the Top
TCI Publishes Cancer Prevention Educational Poster
TCI staff, in collaboration with the Physician Oncology Education Program (POEP), developed a new educational poster insert for the February issue of Texas Medicine magazine. The new poster, focused on cancer prevention and early detection, is one in a series of posters TCI has produced for Texas Medicine over the past several years.
To order this poster, or posters on other topics, e-mail us at info@texascancer.info, or call 713-792-2277.
Back to the Top
TCI Advisory Committee Discusses Five-Year Plan
Texas Cancer Information’s Advisory Committee discussed TCI’s five-year strategic plan to enhance the current Web site at the annual meeting in Houston Jan. 23.
Committee members include representatives from
Lance Armstrong Foundation,
Texas Department of State Health Services,
Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas,
The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center,
Pasadena Public Library,
Physician Oncology Education Program,
Nurse Oncology Education Program,
The University of Texas School of Public Health,
Texas Cancer Registry,
The University of Texas Medical Branch - Galveston,
Hendrick Cancer Center and
Texas Cooperative Extension.
Back to the Top
Get to Know Us ― Elisa Furlan
Elisa Furlan joined TCI as Program Coordinator in April 2007. With 21 years experience in the healthcare industry, including nine years disseminating cancer information to health professionals and the general public through the
National Cancer Institute’s
Cancer Information Service and
The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Elisa knows firsthand the cancer informational needs of the general public and cancer patients.
Elisa’s past experience includes working in patient and physician relations for hospitals and health plans, as well as developing, organizing and managing oncology and cardiovascular independent physician organizations.
Currently, Elisa is overseeing TCI’s completion of the
Access to Cancer Care for Low-Income and Uninsured Texans tool. She also coordinates specialized projects promoting TCI to the health community and the general pubic throughout Texas. Elisa is responsible for coordinating the development, publication and distribution of promotional materials to heighten awareness of TCI.
Elisa’s family keeps her busy outside of the office. She and husband Alfredo have two sons – AJ, and wife Gloria, are students at
Baylor College of Medicine and Carlos is a high school senior heading off to college in the Fall.
Back to the Top
Online Resources About – and For – Community Coalitions
Texas Cancer Information gathers information about local, regional and county-level cancer coalitions throughout Texas and collects it in the
Community Cancer Coalitions Database. Visit the database and find out if there is a coalition in your area.
The
Community Cancer Coalitions page also provides information from the
Texas Cancer Control Toolkit and other sources that may be helpful to coalitions.
Help keep Texans informed about what's going on in the fight against cancer by including your information in the Community Coalitions database. It's free, with no obligation - ever. To add your information, e-mail us at
info@texascancer.info.
Back to the Top
What’s New
TCI’s newest feature can help cancer coalitions and other community cancer organizations get the word out about their upcoming events and meetings. The TCI Web site now hosts a
Community Events page at
http://www.texascancer.info/communityevents.html.
Organizations on the frontline in the war against cancer can now post activities of interest to coalition members and their communities, such as upcoming meetings and cancer prevention, screening and educational events.
To have your meeting or event posted on the
Community Events page, please e-mail TCI at
info@texascancer.info.
During these difficult economic times, the search for funding can be a challenge. New on TCI is information about cancer funding resources to help Texas cancer stakeholders identify possible funding for their cancer control efforts across the state. Explore
Tips from the Texas Cancer Control Toolkit as well as
Cancer Funding: A Directory of Private Funding Sources for Cancer Prevention and Control Projects. You will also find a
Sample Funding Solicitation Letter, as well as links to
Helpful Web Resources.
Texas Cancer Information’s
Access to Cancer Care for Low-Income, Uninsured Patients, offers patients, social workers, case managers and others contact information for county-specific programs for cancer screening and treatment.
TCI staff are compiling information for each Texas county – and are scheduled to complete all 254 counties this summer. Once completed, the information will be verified and updated annually.
Check out the newly expanded Access to Cancer Care:
http://www.texascancer.info/access/accesstocare.html
New online tools allow TCI users additional ways to view comparative incidence data, similar to views currently provided for mortality information. The new tools for comparing and analyzing the cancer incidence data include:
Texas Cancer Information gives you an easy way to view expected cancer cases and deaths from selected causes for a given Texas region.
Estimated cancer cases and deaths for 2008 for all primary cancer sites are provided for Texas, Public Health Regions (Health Service Regions), and Texas counties with at least 100,000 population. Cancer case and death estimates have been provided by the
Texas Cancer Registry.
Need to know the leading causes of death in your county? TCI now offers you the easiest way around to view leading causes of death among selected causes for a given Texas region. Data are derived from the
Texas Vital Statistics 2005 Annual Report produced by the
Center for Health Statistics, Texas Department of State Health Services. Data for later years will be added as available.
Back to the Top
Previous editions of TexasCancer.informer:
