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HOME > ABOUT > PRESS > GROWING ROLE IN HEALTH CARE
Article published - January 24, 2010
Credit: PRESS DEMOCRAT
Growing Role in Health Care
by Martin Espinoza
At the Chanate Family Practice Center in Santa Rosa, Dr. Rebecca Katz spends time as a third-year medical resident treating such things as diabetes, high blood pressure and diaper rash.
But across the street inside the emergency department at Sutter Medical Center, Katz encounters advanced stages of cancer, untreated heart disease and far too many neglected infections.
“In the hospital, I see it all the time, people who come to the ER with conditions that are much worse because they didn't get preventative care,” she said.
Katz's work at the clinic is part of the expanding mission of the Santa Rosa Community Health Centers, formerly Southwest Community Health Center, which has an ever-larger health care role aimed at caring for those with low pay or no pay at all — and with little or no insurance.
The health center is on the verge of a major expansion that would abandon the aging Chanate Road facility for a state-of-the-art medical campus in Fountaingrove.
The move would add an additional 10,000 patients to the 25,000 Santa Rosa residents who are treated every year at one of a half-dozen clinics operated by Santa Rosa Community Health Centers.
It's dramatic growth, from a modest clinic 14 years ago that served predominantly low-income Latino patients to becoming the second-largest provider of outpatient health care in the city.
And it reflects recent, and dramatic, changes in community health care.
“What it tells us is what's happening in America today, what's happening right here in our community with a growing number of uninsured and underinsured with little or no health care access,” Sonoma County Supervisor Shirlee Zane said.
“Whereas community clinics used to be called the safety net, for now they are actually the only nets available,” said Zane, a former member of Southwest's board of directors. “It isn't just Latino patients at Southwest anymore.”
Earlier this month, Southwest Community Health Center took a symbolic step toward defining its growing role by changing its name to Santa Rosa Community Health Centers, a reflection of its coverage on both sides of Highway 101.
Dr. Julio Porro, one of Southwest's founders, never imagined that role when Southwest Community Health Center was created.
Porro, now the associate medical director of a Medi-Cal managed care program based in Santa Cruz, was in his second year at the Santa Rosa Family Medicine Residency Program when he and fellow resident Dr. Roberto Azcarraga attended a forum in San Francisco for minority doctors to learn about federally qualified health centers.
“We were wondering what we were going to do after residency,” he said. “We got to hear these incredible stories about these health centers in the Central Valley and how they were started by committed professionals. We started thinking, we can do this. Why don't we just do this in Santa Rosa?”
The need in the mid-1990s was great.
At the time, the Chanate clinic was a training ground for one of the best residency programs in the country. And it was the only primary care outlet for Santa Rosa residents without medical insurance.
Porro and Azcarraga got together with several other residents and formed a core group of half a dozen residents.
They landed local jobs and in their spare time learned about managed care and how to start and run a federally recognized community clinic that would qualify for Medi-Cal and Medicare reimbursement rates based on an ability to provide low-cost health care.
The group hooked up with others who shared their vision, including Memorial Hospital's Sister Michaela Rock, who helped land $1.2 million to transform a 12,000-square-foot silk-screening plant on Lombardi Court, just off Sebastopol Road.
Kaiser Permanente provided some nurse practitioners and some startup money as well. It was a communitywide effort where few of those involved imagined that the need would quickly spread to the other side of the highway.
Southwest was founded in 1996, with Porro as its first medical director.
“There was an obvious need for health services in that area for many, many years, but nothing had ever gotten done,” Porro said. “We were a young, idealistic group, but at the right place at the right time.”
Over at Chanate Road, the clinic was being operated by Sutter Health as part of its takeover of the county hospital. After Southwest opened, the Chanate Road clinic's patient load, about 60,000 patient visits a year, began dropping by 10,000 yearly visits.
Lombardi Court quickly began absorbing patients and hiring more medical professionals.
In 2004, Southwest took over the Chanate Road clinic, forming a crucial partnership with the residency program that trained its founders.
Santa Rosa Community Health Centers currently operates a number of other clinic sites, including its flagship Lombardi Court clinic, the Santa Rosa Homeless Clinic on A Street, the Elsie Allen Health Center, the Roseland Children's Health Center and the Southwest Adult Day Services in Rincon Valley.
In 2001, Southwest had 45 employees. Today, there are 230.
Current expansion plans call for moving from the 20,000-square-foot Chanate complex to a 42,500-square-foot, two-story building on Round Barn Circle in Fountaingrove.
In one of the clinic offices on Chanate Road, the need for space and a better location is clearly evident.
With a desk and computer, the end of a hallway becomes a tiny work station for support staff. Patients often find themselves cramped in small waiting rooms, and the hillside parking can become a treacherous obstacle for patients making their way down to the clinic on crutches.
During a visit to the Chanate clinic last week, Sheila Recker, 50, of Santa Rosa sought a prescription to extend her physical therapy at a local hospital. She was seen by Dr. Jerry Eliaser, medical director of the Chanate clinic.
Recker, a former deli worker, suffered three strokes last year that were a result of a condition known as polycythemia vera, an abnormal increase in the number of primarily red blood cells.
Recker, who is on disability, said she worked at Agilent for 13 years in micro-electronics manufacturing when outsourcing claimed her job.
Before and after he examined the mobility of Recker's left hand, Eliaser discussed the possibility of vocational training.
“You're coming to a crossroads in your life in terms of how you think of yourself, as capable or incapable,” he said.
Recker said she appreciated Eliaser's advice and that she was thankful health centers like Santa Rosa Community Health Centers were playing a more crucial role at a time when jobs and health coverage are disappearing.
“As far as the pay and all the benefits, the good jobs are not out there anymore. It's at the bottom, like the economy,” she said.
But Santa Rosa Community Health Centers' current plan for expansion is not a done deal.
The health center is nearing the end of a capital campaign that began last summer and it has until the end of the month to raise $650,000 — what's left of the $2.5 million needed to leverage $13 million in low-interest, tax-exempt bond financing to buy and build out the property at 3569 Round Barn Circle property
Major donors to the campaign thus far include the Ernest L. and Ruth W. Finley Foundation ($100,000), Frank and Kathleen Mayhew ($100,000), Sutter Hospital ($250,000) and Kaiser Permanente ($350,000). The newly named Santa Rosa Community Health Centers, has contributed $500,000 of its own money for the project.
“I need to have all my pledged money by Jan. 30,” said Naomi Fuchs, Santa Rosa Community Health Centers' chief executive officer. “I want to get across the finish line and make this real. I have a lot of faith and confidence in our community.”
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