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San Diego's Community Clinics

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What role does San Diego's community clinics play in the health of the citizens of San Diego county and surrounding counties?

San Diego County is one of the most geographically and culturally diverse counties in the United States, this brings many strengths, as well as challenges in matters of community resilience.  The community clinics of San Diego County play a vital role in the health and stability of not only the San Diego area, but Southern California as a whole.  The Council of Community Clinics is an organization that provides support services to approximately 100 clinic sites in San Diego, Imperial, and Riverside counties. These range from clinics in San Ysidro on the border with Mexico, serving the Border community, to centers serving the urban poor, to clinics in the north and east serving the farmworking and rural communites. These clinics provide much needed physical and mental health services not available, or  accessible, to much of the population. The Center on Policy Initiatives shows that more than one third of the County's population "live in economic hardship, or more than 200 percent below the federal poverty level".(2010)  This population, is very much dependent upon the community clinics for access to even the most basic of healthcare services.  San Diego County has also suffered several natural disasters including the wildfires of 2003, and 2007.  The community clinics are essential in helping with the huge challenge of treating and caring for a community in distress during emergencies and disasters.

 

 

  What services do the community clinics offer?

The clinics offer a full range of services, including primary healthcare, dental, mental health services, family planning, immunizations, HIV prevention, and emergency preparedness.  Special intiatives and education include, Asthma, Diabetes, Oral health, and Breast Cancer care coordination.  What populations do they serve? 

The clinics serve low-income and the uninsured. 18 federally recognized Native American tribes reside within the county and are served by the clinics.  San Diego County is also home to approximately 100,000 - 150,000 refugees from several countries including, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Burma, Vietnam, Cambodia, Haiti and other countries, making it one of the most culturally diverse healthcare populations in the United States.  Farmworkers from Mexico and Central America, as well as the urban poor are also  served by the clinics. 

 How prepared is this community health infrastructure to face federal, state, and local cutbacks?

Most of these clinics are funded through a combination of sources but rely heavily upon federal, and state grants and programs to be sustainable. Clinic resources are strained at best, further cuts will dramatically impact the ability to provide much needed services to a major portion of the population.  The recent blackout showed resources are still needed such as generators for the clinics, (and appropriate wireing), and education and training for Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Response.  As training funds dwindle, it becomes more of a challenge to train new staff, in a workforce that has a fairly high turnover rate due to many factors.  Many clinics lost a large number of vaccines and other medicines due to lack of refrigeration during the blackout adding to budget losses.

  As cutbacks take place in health services in San Diego County, will the community clinics infrastructure be undermined by the more powerful hospital lobbies, or will they find unique roles and funding sources based upon their specific contributions to community resilience in San Diego?

 Although the hospital lobbies have been strong, and have traditionally garnered the "lion's share" of federal funding, the Community Clinics of San Diego County show a continued resilience, based on the collaborative relationships they have fostered, through involvement at county healthcare and disaster councils, through attendance at Town Hall meetings, engaging the involvement of local political, and business leaders, as well community forums and events.  Many clinics have formed collaborative agreements with local hospitals to handle issues affecting mutual resources during a disaster.  Shared education, training, surge capacity, and warehouse sharing are some of the ways the clinics and hospitals have formed mutually resilient pathways.  Collaborative visualization and communication tools are increasingly being used in the clinics to educate, train, inic community of the needs, concerns, and for discussing solutions.  The Immersive Visualization Center at San Diego State University is assisting the Council of Community clinics in GIS mapping it's clinics which should enable quicker communications during an event.  Further collaboration is being explored with other civic departments such as the Fire Departments, during the most recent power outage on September 10,2011 one of our clinics utilized the neighboring Fire Department's refrigerator to store vaccines to prevent cold-chain interruption.

This thread within the San Diego Community  Health Collaboramtory is focused on clarifying these issues, so that gacitizens, policy makers and funding agencies can ensure that the community clinics, as valuable assets in maintaining and advancing the health of Southern Californians, can continue to provide the essential services to key populations around the greater San Diego/Southern California area. 

 

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[The Role of Community Clinics in San Diego coming soon]

[Services Offered by San Diego's Community Clinics coming soon]

[Population's Served by Community Clinics coming soon]

[Funding Concerns for the Community Clinics coming soon]

[Issues for Citizens & Policy Makers to Understand about Clinics coming soon]

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For more information on the greater San Diego Counter Community Clinics, please go to:

 

 

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