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New and Noteworthy ServicesKaiser Permanente awards $442,000 to south area
county clinic South City Health Center to improve health of uninsured
chronic disease patients | ||||||
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Kaiser Permanente presents a check for $442,000 to the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors for health care for uninsured people in south Sacramento County. Pictured are, from left, Dorothy Pitman, MD, Medical Director of Clinics Division of Primary Health Services, Sacramento County; Keith Andrews, MD, Chief of Primary Health Services, Sacramento County; Roger Dickinson, Supervisor; Jimmie Yee, Supervisor; Max Villalobos, Senior Vice President and Area Manager, South Sacramento Medical Center; Richard Isaacs, MD, Physician-in-Chief, South Sacramento Medical Center; Susan Peters, Supervisor; Don Nottoli, Supervisor; and Roberta MacGlashan, Supervisor. Kaiser Permanente presented a $442,000 grant to the County of Sacramento’s Department of Health and Human Services to expand access to primary care and health education for uninsured patients in the south area who suffer from complex chronic diseases, such as asthma, diabetes and heart disease. The grant, from Kaiser Permanente’s Safety Net Partnership program, was presented at the March 20 meeting of the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors and will be used to expand access and enhance chronic disease management programs at the South City Health Center, the county’s southern most county-operated clinic. The clinic, located at 7171 Bowling Drive, has more than 12,000 patient visits annually and serves an ethnically diverse, uninsured and underinsured population of adults and children. “At Kaiser Permanente, our mission is to improve the health of the communities we serve,” said Richard Isaacs, MD, physician-in-chief of the South Sacramento Medical Center. “It’s important that we forge strong partnerships with our safety net health care providers, like the South City Health Center, to ensure that everybody has access to quality health care services.” The clinic will use the grant to fund additional staff to provide chronic disease management and individualized health education to patients diagnosed with chronic illnesses. Lynn Frank, director of the County of Sacramento’s Department of Health and Human Services, said managing chronic diseases on a daily basis requires special considerations, such as attention to diet. Many of those served in the South City Health Center face additional challenges when addressing these necessities, such as a lack of transportation and access to healthy, fresh food. “The County of Sacramento is working creatively with Kaiser Permanente to provide solutions to these challenges, to augment services, and to reduce the volume of emergency room visits and admittances to the hospital,” she said. “We know that the uninsured who have chronic conditions like diabetes and asthma often delay treatment until they are in crisis,” added Richard Harr, MD, lead physician for Kaiser Permanente’s Chronic Condition Management Program in Sacramento. “We can improve outcomes for these individuals by enhancing access to quality primary care services and teaching them how to better self-manage their disease.” |
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