Arlington Public Library and the Virginia Hospital Center have teamed up for your health with the creation of ¡Salud! ―an easy-to-use portal of expertly chosen online health information and resources available in English and Spanish.

¡Salud!―which is Spanish for “health!”―allows users to: 

• Quickly research specific health conditions and diseases
• Evaluate procedures and prescriptions
• See video lessons on preventative care
• Find and compare doctor and insurance options
• Ask the Virginia Hospital Center medical librarian questions anytime via a prominent email link on the site
• Explore specific Arlington County programs including public clinics and immunizations
• Dig deeper into an array of reference collections available through Arlington Public Library, the Virginia Hospital Center’s Medical Library and the National Library of Medicine

The portal, created as a partnership with a federal award of $6000, is now part of the Arlington Public Library’s valuable 24/7 online research collection. ¡Salud! incorporates premium sites (usually only available to paying subscribers), which are free with an Arlington Public Library card. The portal also features the best medical websites as chosen by the Virginia Hospital Center’s medical librarian.

In addition to being available through the Internet, ¡Salud! will be accessible at a dedicated computer work station for patients and their families at the Virginia Hospital Center and another at the Columbia Pike Branch Library. With ¡Salud! offering a rich selection of information in Spanish (especially for local Arlington health programs), our librarians will be reaching out to the Latino community to demonstrate ¡Salud! at English as Second Language classes and other gatherings.

This project has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under Contract No. NO1-LM-6-3502 with the University of Maryland Baltimore.