Holiday Fund 2003: Family health center: new name, same mission Holiday Fund 2003: Family health center: new name, same mission (December 17, 2003)

By Andrea Gemmet
Almanac Staff Writer

It's got a new name, but the mission remains the same. The Ravenswood Family Health Center offers an array of medical and health services to uninsured and low-income residents of Belle Haven, East Palo Alto, North Fair Oaks and part of Redwood City.

The former name -- South County Community Health Center -- was dropped in favor of the new moniker in April.

The number of patients being seen at the two-year-old facility at the corner of Bay Road and Clarke Street in East Palo Alto has more than doubled since last year, up to 16,000 from 7,500, says CEO Luisa Buada. And by next year, the health center intends to nearly double the number of patients it serves again, to its maximum capacity of 30,000, she says.

It's a place where school kids can get shots at the new drop-in immunization clinic, pregnant women can get prenatal checkups, and seniors can get medications and treatment.

"There's a pent-up demand in this community -- every time we've added a provider, we've filled up their schedules," Ms. Buada says.

Besides medical treatment, patients can take advantage of several social services organizations housed on-site: the Family Support Center for the Mid-Peninsula, New Perspective, Nuestra Casa, and El Concilio of San Mateo County.

Funding for the health center comes from several sources, Ms. Buada says. About 30 percent of the annual budget comes from a federal grant, and 40 percent comes from patient fees and insurance reimbursements. The remaining 30 percent, slightly under $1 million, comes from donations that have to be raised every year, she says.

In spite of the threat of cuts to state medical insurance programs like Medi-Cal and Healthy Families proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Ravenswood Family Health Center is still planning to expand, says Ms. Buada.

"We're not changing what we're doing," she says.

Ms. Buada says the center would also like to offer dental care to more patients -- currently a mobile dental clinic comes one day a week -- but with an average cost of $200 per patient, the center can't afford it.

Ravenswood has come up with some innovative ways to keep costs down. A collaboration with Stanford University will bring medical students to the clinic as volunteer patient health advocates, she says. Clinic officials are working on a pharmacy program in which medical students take on the paperwork for prescriptions, saving Ravenswood about $50,000 a year.

The health center is also stepping up its outreach. To reach the African-American community, Ravenswood has been working with local pastors to get the word out about the services it offers. An outreach worker also goes out "into parks, crack houses, and under freeways" to screen homeless people, offering palliative care as well as encouraging those with serious problems to come into the clinic, Ms. Buada says.

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