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HOME > ABOUT > PRESS > HEALTH CENTER'S NAME CHANGE
Article published - January 7, 2010
Credit: PRESS DEMOCRAT
Health center's name change reflects larger change
by Martin Espinoza
Southwest Community Health Center is changing its name to Santa Rosa Community Health Centers, a move that reflects its meteoric rise from a small clinic in a poor neighborhood to one of the county's largest health care providers.
The health center's directors unanimously approved the name change at a board meeting Thursday evening.
“Our new name reflects the pivotal role we play in providing care to 25,000 people in seven locations throughout Santa Rosa,” said Naomi Fuchs, Southwest's chief executive officer.
The name change occurs on the eve of a historic overhaul of the nation's health care system, in which the county's largest health center complex expects to play a crucial role.
The re-branding also comes a little more than three weeks before a crucial Jan. 30 deadline. The health center has until then to raise $1.2 million to clinch a deal on a Fountaingrove office building that would become its east Santa Rosa headquarters and, at least for now, its largest medical campus.
The $1.2 million is part of the $2.5 million needed to leverage $15 million in low-interest, tax-exempt bond financing. The total, $17.5 million, would be used to purchase a two-story building at 3569 Round Barn Circle and transform it from office space to a medical facility.
The location is considered ideal because of its proximity to the Kaiser hospital complex on Bicentennial Way, Kaiser medical offices on Old Redwood Highway and the proposed new Sutter Medical Center just north of the city.
Since its founding in 1996, Southwest Community Health Center has grown rapidly, even as the county has downsized its direct medical services for low income residents.
The growth has been partly fueled by its status as a federally qualified health center, a designation it received in 2002 that allows it to receive an enviable reimbursement rate for Medi-Cal patients.
In 2004, Southwest opened Chanate Road clinic next to Sutter Medical Center, a site that later became the Chanate Family Practice Center, a proving ground for the city's medical residency program.
Southwest currently operates a number of other clinic sites, including its flagship clinic at Lombardi Court in Roseland, the Santa Rosa Homeless Clinic on A Street, the Elsie Allen Health Center, the Roseland Children's Health Center Southwest Adult Day Services in Rincon Valley.
The 42,500-square-foot Fountaingrove site will replace Southwest's aging 20,000- square-foot Chanate complex.
Fuchs said that with expansion at Fountaingrove and a planned expansion at the Lombardi complex, the Santa Rosa Community Health Centers will add an additional 10,000 patients over the next 12 to 18 months.
The name change was inevitable, said Fuchs.
“Santa Rosa Community Health Centers is here to serve all the all the people who will be covered under the new health care program, whether it's and expansion of Medicare, an expansion of Medi-Cal or some other public option,” Fuchs said.
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