2015 Spring Newsletter - Ravenswood Family Health Center

Photo: Federica Armstrong
A Legacy of Care
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Sp ut S ed Fam r
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Building for the Future
Luisa Buada, CEO and Congresswoman Jackie Speier cut the ribbon at the Grand Opening.
Dear Friends,
n May 5th our new health center
at 1885 Bay Road in East Palo
O
Alto officially opens to provide health
“Whatever you can do or
dream you can do, begin it!
Boldness has genius, power
and magic in it!”
services.
I
t’s a new beginning for our patients, the
staff, and the community. After a very
long planning process that began in 2003,
the outpouring of praise by residents of
the community who came to celebrate the
Grand Opening was immensely gratifying.
The amazing team that spearheaded the
project, including our architect Scott
Peterson of INDE Architecture and Rudolph
& Sletten, wrestled with so many options
and requirements. But we were energized
by the vision to create a health center
that would embody all that we believe is
essential to ensure equity in health care.
Our new health center levels the playing
field. It gives people quality care in a
beautiful environment and removes
barriers to ancillary services. In addition
to medical, behavioral health and
– Goethe
We wish to express our immeasurable
gratitude to everyone whose loyalty and
generosity contributed to the construction
of this state-of-the-art health center for
the people of the communities we serve.
With thanks and appreciation,
dental, Ravenswood will offer radiology, Luisa Buada,
including general x-ray, ultrasound and Chief Executive Officer
mammography, optometry services,
and pharmacy services to registered
Ravenswood patients.
K
nowing how significant the visual
environment is, we engaged the staff
and artists of Mural, Music and Arts Project
(MMAP), an East Palo Alto nonprofit, to
create unique pieces of art with cultural
symbols and motifs representing the
ethnic diversity of residents from our
community. We want the new facility to
be a place of beauty, a place of healing,
and a place where people are proud to
work. We want our patients to feel calm
and appreciated and valued as people.
Ravenswood Family Health Center
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What we do
Ravenswood Family Health
Center’s mission is to
improve the health status
of the community we serve
by providing high quality,
culturally competent primary
and preventive health care to
people of all ages regardless
of ability to pay.
— Mission Statement
Board of Directors
Julio Garcia, Chair
Melieni Talakai, Vice Chair
Karen Hernandez, Treasurer
Jonathan Lindeke, Secretary
Marisela Alvarez
Nancy Alvarez
Adrian Amaral
Manuel Arteaga
Vernal Bailey
Karen Blackwell
Marcelline Combs
Senseria Conley
Siteri Maravou
Elizabeth Sosa
Raymond Mills, Board Liaison
Sherri Sager, Board Liaison
Advisory Council
Patricia Bresee, Chair
Maya Altman
Greg Avis
Caretha Coleman
Chris Dawes
Rob Freelen
Greg Gallo
Rose Jacobs Gibson
Lily Hurlimann
Dr. Ross Jaffe
Jim Koshland
Dr. Phil Lee
Dr. Richard Levy
Gordon Russell
John A. Sobrato
Dr. Frederick St. Goar
Jane Williams
Provide integrated,
coordinated primary
health care to lowincome and uninsured
residents of San Mateo
& Santa Clara counties
Photos: Federica Armstrong
The Father Teams Up with Kevin’s Care Team
Eye Care for You at Ravenswood’s Optometry Clinic
evin is a sweet, dark-eyed
five year old who has multiple health and developmental issues. On a recent
morning, his father, Julio, brought
Kevin in because he had a fever
and cough. Xenia Gonzalez, the
medical assistant on his care team
cajoles him into letting her put the
pulse oximeter on his finger to
get a reading on his oxygen level.
He knows the drill and balks only
until she promises to give him a
Sponge Bob sticker.
His father brings Kevin to most
appointments because his mother has
a daytime job as a cashier at a gas
station. Julio works too, but in the evening at Century Cinema. He gets off
after 11pm, and is up early to drive his
three children to their three respective
schools. This morning, Kevin gets to
“skip” his pre-K school and comes to
see his care team.
Kevin was two when he was first
seen at RFHC. The pediatrician administered the standard Ages & Stages of
Development questions and noted an
obvious speech delay. By the time Dr.
James Kaferly took over his care when
he was three, it was evident to his parents too that Kevin had a significant
developmental delay. He was seen
by one of Ravenswood’s Integrated
Behavioral Health providers who suggested possible Autism Spectrum
Disorder. Kevin was then evaluated by
Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital developmental behavioral pediatricians
who, through more refined testing,
determined that Kevin didn’t meet the
criterion for autism, but that there was a
significant cognitive delay with special
education needs.
Then in February 2014, Kevin came
s essential to life as eyes are,
people will forego eye care
and treatment for vision disorders when they’re uninsured or
financially strapped. This is especially unfortunate
in communities
of color that have
significantly higher rates of diabetes, the number
one cause of vision loss in adults
in the U.S.
According to
the American Optometric Association, eye and vision services have
been greatly underrepresented at
community health
centers; only 18% of centers provide
in-house optometric services. With
the opening of its new health center,
Ravenswood has remedied this inequity by including an optometry clinic
with two exam rooms and state-ofthe-art diagnostic equipment. To
plan and equip the optometry clinic, CEO Luisa Buada hired Dr. Sonia Menchavez, who completed her
4-year optometry training at Berkeley, followed by a Master’s in Public
Health, graduating in June 2014.
K
in with a fever, with coughing and labored breathing. "His initial presentation
was acute exacerbation. He was very
sick and had low oxygen levels and required intensive care by the clinic staff.”
The team observed him for an hour,
administering Albuterol until his condition improved. During that time, Xenia
showed the father how to administer
asthma medication using a spacer. Julio
caught on quickly. His own father also
had asthma. Because his parents are
functionally illiterate, Kevin’s care team
uses the verbal technique of teach-
feedback to reinforce their understanding of ways to prevent asthma flare ups.
Kevin’s asthma symptoms still per-
sist, and so he continues to need
daily medication, but his language
skills are improving. As he flies his
plastic orange dragon around making buzzing sounds, he talks about
Godzilla. Then, holding a squareheaded Sponge Bob figure, he
proudly announces the shape, “It’s
square.”
Dr. Kaferly acknowledges it’s
difficult for Kevin’s parents to address all of the chronic issues of
their son at once. It’s a learning process that takes time. “Trying to prioritize becomes difficult when you
have persistent asthma, obesity, educational concerns and a variety of psychosocial stressors that are present. We’ve
tried to seek out ways that they can create a healthy structure and create patterns that help Kevin grow and succeed.
And so, each visit we try to focus on
a particular aspect and make progress
as we go along because we know that
these items are not a single visit, single
fix. We walk with the family and continue to empower them as they go through
this to advocate for their son.”
Kevin will enter kindergarten in
the fall of 2015 and, together with his
parents, his care team wants to make
sure he receives an optimal level of
educational support. As a child with
a learning disability, the Ravenswood
City School District has given him a
basic Individualized Education Plan
(IEP). However, knowing Kevin’s cognitive issues, Dr. Kaferly referred Kevin’s parents to the Family Advocacy
Program, a medical-legal partnership,
asking them to represent Kevin to ensure he receives the special education
services he will need to give him the
best chance.
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Destined for the Part
As an undergraduate, Dr.
Menchavez volunteered with a nonprofit that served day workers in
her hometown of Mountain View.
Although the laborers had access to mobile medical and dental
care, there was no eye care. While
studying optometry at Berkeley, Dr.
Menchavez received a Schweitzer
Fellowship that is designed to prepare the next generation of leaders to address underlying causes
of health inequities. (It was the first
time an optometry student received
the Schweitzer fellowship in the Bay
Area.) For her service project, Dr.
Menchavez developed a vision care
service for the day workers in Mountain View. But at the end of the day,
it wasn’t sustainable, and like other
volunteer projects she had participated in Peru and Nicaragua, it dissolved. The volunteer experiences
made her more determined. ”Whether or not they can get the care they
need depends on so many other factors external to what you can provide in the exam room,” she said. “I
wanted to learn more with the goal in
mind of creating sustainable vision
care for underserved communities.”
While in the MPH program, Dr.
Menchavez attended a lecture and
heard Luisa Buada talking about her
community health center and saw
slides of plans for the new health
center. “Afterwards I went up and
asked, ‘Are you going to have inhouse eye care?’” That conversation led Sonia to focus her capstone
MPH project on a needs assessment
at Ravenswood to assess diabetic
patients’ understanding about eye
care and the barriers to seeking eye
care. As soon as she completed the
MPH program, she joined Ravenswood and began plans for the new
optometry Clinic.
Dr. Menchavez is one of a new
crop of optometrists with an interest in public health who believe
that community clinics are the way
to reach low-income populations.
“There are not a lot of us. In the U.S,
there are only 148 full-time optometrists in community clinics, while
there are 23 million people that community clinics serve.”
Bringing optometry services to
Ravenswood’s patients is an important step in addressing a serious gap
in health care access. Without onsite
eye care services, Ravenswood patients have had to wait 4 to 6 months
to be seen at the County’s clinics. In
fact, there’s a backlog of 350 people as soon as the Optometry Clinic
commences on May 5th. The new
clinic will offer comprehensive primary eye care services including ocular
disease management, and access to
affordable eyeglasses. It is equipped
with the newest instruments for diagnosing and managing many types of
ocular disease such as retinopathy,
macular degeneration, glaucoma,
and other neurological conditions.
Primary Medical Care
• Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine
• Adult Medicine
• Prenatal Care
• Screenings & Immunizations
• Women’s Health
• Referrals to Specialty Care
• Optometry
• Pharmacy
• Radiology: general x-ray,
ultrasound, & mammography
Integrated Behavioral
Health Services
• Crisis intervention
• Short-term Counseling
• Pediatric & Adult
Social Service Referral
• Parenting Support
• Psychiatric Consult
• Domestic Violence Counseling
Center for Health
Promotion
• Chronic Disease Management
• Health Coaching
• Health Coverage Enrollment
Ravenswood Family
Dentistry
• Pediatric & Adult Dental
• Preventive care
• Restorative & Periodontal care
• Oral surgery
• Emergency dental services
• Oral Health Education
Ravenswood Family
Health Center
1885 Bay Road,
East Palo Alto, CA 94303
Tel: (650) 330-7400
Mailing address:
1798A Bay Road,
East Palo Alto 94303
Center for Health Promotion
Eligibility & Enrollment
1805 Bay Road, East Palo Alto
Tel: (650) 330-7416
Celebrating Service
to the Community
Ravenswood Family Dentistry
1807 Bay Rd., East Palo Alto
Tel: (650) 289-7700
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Ravenswood Family Health Center
Photos: Rudolph & Sletten
Visit our website at www.ravenswoodfhc.org
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May 5th is SV Gives!
Capital Campaign
Gifts and Commitments
$5,000,000+
Health Resources & Services
Administration
Mark Zuckerberg & Priscilla Chan
Silicon Valley’s 2nd Annual Day of Charitable Giving
In 2014, Silicon Valley Community Foundation started
SV Gives to encourage charitable giving to Silicon
Valley nonprofits. SV Gives was widely successful
in its inaugural year, raising over $8 million for
participating nonprofits.
his year, four generous Silicon
Valley donors will match
T
all donations to Ravenswood
Family Health Center’s SV
Gives fundraising campaign!
Your donation will help pay for
our new, state-of-the-art health
center in East Palo Alto. The
new facility enables us to nearly
double the number of patients
(25,000+) we serve each year
and provide optometry, x-ray and
mammography services for the
first time.
Every $1 you donate means $2 for RFHC!
Your donation will be
acknowledged in our Legacy of
Care Recognition Program.
Donate online at
SVGivesHealth.org
Mail a check to:
Ravenswood Family
Health Center
1798A Bay Road
East Palo Alto, CA 94303
Write “SV Gives” in memo line
With a gift of
$25 to $999, your name will be
inscribed on a sculpture in front of
RFHC’s new building
$1,000 & up, your name will be
added to our stunning donor wall
located in the main lobby of the new
building
$25,000 & up, you can select an
exam room or department in the
new building to be dedicated in your
honor or in a loved one’s memory.
Community Members Pledge to Our Capital Campaign
Rose Jacobs-Gibson
Former San Mateo County Supervisor
ne of the things I’ll always remember
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hearing from community members was
why they chose to go to their local clinic. It
was not only about convenience, but they felt
welcomed, they felt trust.
Manuel Arteaga
Board Member
hen I joined the Ravenswood board, I
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was uninsured so I know how important
it is to have access to health care when you’re
uninsured.
These days rising rents and cost of
living are squeezing low and middle income
families in Silicon Valley as never before.
Meda Okelo
Editor & Publisher, El Ravenswood
that as a member of any community,
Iinthink
everybody is obligated morally to invest
their community. There are various
ways in which people can invest. You can
volunteer, give your time, or you can give
some money to causes such as this one.
They're being forced to make sacrifices and
work longer hours to keep a roof a over their
heads. Donations to RFHC ensure the families
we serve do not have to sacrifice important
preventative and primary care services to
make ends meet. Good health means children
miss fewer days of school, and enables
parents to focus on work and meeting the
needs of their family.
The health needs of this community are
well known. Personally, and I’m sure there
a lot of people that share this as well, we’re
very proud that we have a state-of-the-art
health clinic. Some of us feel obligated to
do whatever it takes to ensure that whatever
remains to get done is done. And so
that’s the reason I have felt compelled to
contribute.
Community residents
he Pulidos live close to the new
health center and came to the
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opening celebration to tour it. “It’s
amazing. It’s really beautiful outside
and inside. It’s convenient and has
To arrange a tour,
please contact
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everything you need. Great job! I’m so
happy for the community.”
The Pulidos decided to make a
contribution. “We don’t have a lot of
money but we want to give a little bit,”
said Quintila, ”I’ve been living here
for years, but this is the first time I’ve
seen anything like this.”
Jason Wurtz, Fundraising & Marketing Manager
650-317-7829 • [email protected]
Ravenswood Family Health Center
$1,000,000-$1,999,999
Cisco Systems
David & Lucile Packard Foundation
Dick & Sue Levy
John & Jill Freidenrich
Peery Foundation
Gordon Russell & Tina McAdoo
$500,000-$999,999
John & Marcia Goldman
Foundation
Sand Hill Foundation
$250,000-$499,999
Anonymous
Kaiser Permanente
The Avis Family Foundation
$100,000-$249,999
The Grove Foundation
$50,000-$99,999
At the grand opening celebration, there
was such excitement from the community.
Hearing them express their appreciation and
gratitude for this beautiful facility, knowing that
they were going to be able to get good quality
health care...It’s been needed for a long time.
It says, don’t think small, think big. The health
center definitely sets a new standard for the
community.
Mario and Quintila Pulido
John & Sue Sobrato
Palo Alto Medical Foundation/
Sutter Health
Silicon Valley Community
Foundation
Andrew & Judith Ann Mendelsohn
Anonymous
Cassani/St. Goar Family Fund
Cathie & James Koshland
Craig & Jane Williams
Greg & Penny Gallo
Leonard C. & Mildred F. Ferguson
Foundation
Patricia Bresee
Ross & Eve Jaffe
$25,000-$49,999
Bothin Foundation
Linda & Tony Meier
Luisa Buada
Maya Altman
Pitch & Cathy Johnson
Randy & Julie Merk
Sherri Sager
Ted & Sissy Geballe
The Joseph & Vera Long
Foundation
Up to $25,000
Aaron & Sitara Lones
Alain & Rosemary Enthoven
California Bank & Trust
Dana & Tom Hayse
David & Barbara Slone
Geoff & Colleen Tate
Greg & Nancy Serrurier
Harvey Cohen
Jaime Chavarria
Manuel Arteaga
O’Brien Family Charitable Trust
Phil Lee
Harlan & Rebecca Pinto
Rose Jacobs Gibson
Talakai Family
The Koret Foundation in Honor of
John Sobrato
Thomas Fogarty
Wayne & Cheryle Yost
Watch the celebration video at
www.ravenswoodfhc.org
Editor:Kathleen Alexander • Design: Royd Hatta
May 5, 2015
$2,000,000-$4,999,999