Elica Health Centers received Jerry McLarty Grant

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Sacramento, California-based clinic receives grant that will further improve mobile medicine units’ technical systems

SACRAMENTO, Ca. (September, 2019) – Elica Health Centers, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) received a Jerry McLarty Connectivity Grant on September 16, 2019 during the 15th annual Mobile Health Clinics Conference hosted by the Mobile Healthcare Association in Fort Worth, Texas. This conference included medical professionals and local health organizations from the following states and countries: Ala., Ariz., Ark., Calif., Colo., District of Columbia, Fla., Ga., Hawaii, Ill., Ind., Iowa, Ky., La., Md., Mass., Mich., Miss., Mo., Nev., N.., N.C., Ohio, Okla., Ore., Pa., S.C., S.D., Tenn., Texas, Utah, Va., Wash., W. Va., Wis., British Columbia, Canada, and Quito, Ecuador.

300 attendees were at the conference. Aidé Long, Director of Community Outreach Services at Elica Health Centers and Stephanie Merrell, Director of Community Health Improvement from John Muir Health facilitated a workshop at the conference. Prevention and primary care vision was the topic. The workshop was highly attended with over 60 plus attendees. Participants learned about Healthcare delivery models, chronic disease management and population health. Specialty care, quality, regulatory requirements, follow up processes along with best practices were discussed in depth along with outreach and marketing strategies.

Elica Health Centers is a local non-profit with a network of nine health center sites and two mobile units. Elica Health Centers primarily serves low-income patients and those who have barriers to accessing healthcare services. 82% of Elica’s patient population are enrolled in Medi-Cal. Elica serves three counties: Sacramento, Yolo, and Placer.

In those 3 counties, 36% of Sacramento’s population is enrolled in Medi-Cal, 16% in Placer County, and 26% of Yolo County.

Elica was chosen by the number of patients served in 2018. In 2018, Elica’s Health On Wheels (HOW)-1 mobile clinic delivered on-site healthcare services to 1,139 unduplicated school students, homeless patients, and other low-income individuals. Elica’s Health On Wheels (HOW) mobile clinic program currently features one five-year old mobile clinic which provides on-site primary medical (e.g.: immunizations; well-child exams; blood pressure screenings, etc), dental (e.g.: exams, sealants, x-rays, etc.) and behavioral/mental health screenings (e.g.: opioid and other substance use disorder screening/treatment; depression screening/treatment, etc). Two additional mobile clinics offering a combination of medical and dental care will become operational this fall, and an all-dental mobile clinic will be launched by the close of calendar 2019.

This grant Elica was awarded by West Networks. This will provide Elica with: (a) an HD4 MBX connectivity package, (b) all requisite antennas, (c) on-site equipment set-up, and (d) one year of follow-up homeless patients in the Sacramento (CA) region. With a new HD4 MBX connectivity package and other related equipment, Elica projects to serve a larger number of patients on both the older HOW-1 and the soon-to-be launched HOW-2 by a minimum of 50%–a total of 2,562 unduplicated patients. The equipment installation is scheduled for late November and early december 2019. Elica Health Centers is expected to use the new network starting January 2020.