As a federally qualified health center, CommuniCare+OLE is here to help those individuals who otherwise might fall through the cracks of our healthcare system. We provide high-quality, comprehensive healthcare to all who need it, regardless of insurance or ability to pay.
What is health equity?
Health equity is defined as a state where everyone has a fair and just opportunity to attain their highest level of health. Unfortunately, we see preventable differences in health outcomes among different populations due to what are referred to as “social drivers of health.” These include factors outside of the healthcare setting such as access to transportation, housing, education, and social support.
We take a person-centered approach to care and work to address and understand the root causes of any health concerns. Part of our model includes social drivers of health screenings, which are one-on-one sessions with patients to inquire about any barriers they experience in accessing food, transportation, safe housing, and more. We offer wraparound services to help provide education on healthy living, conduct regular food distributions, and foster close collaboration among medical, dental, and behavioral health providers to address all our patients’ needs. And we connect patients to other community resources through our care coordination, which helps our patients access other services and resources in our communities to address transportation, housing, food assistance, and more. In 2023, we conducted 2,800 social determinants of health assessments to connect individuals to resources.
Our mission is to build stronger communities, and we cannot achieve that if certain groups are left out of the equation.
Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB)
There cannot be health equity for our patients and community without a solid internal foundation of DEIB work embedded into our operations. Our DEIB efforts take several forms:
Recruitment
We work to ensure that our providers understand the lived experiences of our patients and clients. We have created a pipeline to recruit diverse talent, particularly providers, who come from backgrounds similar to those of our patients. This effort extends to our behavioral health services, where we employ peer advocates who have struggled with substance use and involvement in the justice system.
Learning and Exploration
We host monthly DEIB events for staff, including an “Un-Learn Book Club” and cultural competence and humility series, where our employees can engage in honest, and sometimes difficult, conversations about issues of structural racism, discrimination, and bias.
Training
We understand that many of our patients carry the weight of adverse childhood events (or ACEs) with them when they come in for a visit. To help build trust and rapport, we train our health center staff in Trauma Informed Resilience Oriented Healing, or TIROH. It involves reframing questions like, “what is wrong” to “what happened” and also looks to focus on resilience. We also offer regular training for our teams around issues of microaggressions and unconscious bias in an effort to foster open dialogue that leads to deeper understanding and ultimately better, more culturally competent patient care.
Connection
At CommuniCare+OLE, we have groups for individuals who identify as LGBTQIA+ or BIPOC that create safe spaces for these communities to share experiences, discuss concerns, and foster connection among one another.
How Our History Informs Our Commitment
CommuniCare+OLE is the result of the merging of two health centers that are both deeply rooted in their communities and created specifically to address gaps care gaps for certain groups. In 1972, in Napa, there was no place for Spanish-speaking migrant farmworkers or their families to receive healthcare. Many would have to choose between working sick or injured or losing out on pay – or even risk losing their job – in order to find care, which they might have struggled to afford. Often, whatever care they could find would not be available in Spanish.
In 1972, in Davis, there weren’t facilities or professionals to help those struggling with substance use disorder. Inspired by the clinics in San Francisco, Dr. John Jones opened the Davis Free Clinic and made these services available to all. Over time, the services expanded from only substance use to a full-scope of primary care services, including medical, dental, and behavioral health.
Visionaries in both communities knew that something had to change to improve the health and welfare of all residents. We are proud of the work we have done over the past 50+ years to change it.
We have grown from humble roots in Rutherford and Davis into a network of nonprofit health centers spanning three counties, we remain focused on a more just and equitable future for all.
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