Street
Medicine

Health Care & Related Services

Another of our Wellness Outside Walls (WOW) programs is Street Medicine, which is part of an emerging collaboration of health care professionals, outreach workers, and others that has been happening globally since the early 1990s.

The practice of street medicine is defined as those health care and related services that are delivered directly to persons sleeping on the streets, along river banks, and in abandoned buildings in and around urban/suburban areas.

Weekly Street Rounds

Initiated in 2014, Elica’s program includes partnering with shelter programs to provide health services for their clients and conducting weekly street rounds in Sacramento and West Sacramento, where providers lead teams to engage with individuals on their own turf and terms.

During weekly street rounds, Street Team members deal with a variety of primary care, behavioral health and other related issues, performing tasks ranging from the distribution of personal hygiene products to treating patients with severe chest pains.

A great deal of time and effort is also expended on finding wrap around services, providing care coordination and case management for those with chronic or more serious conditions.

Veterinary Services

In September 2016, veterinary services were added to Elica's Street Medicine program as part of a year-long pilot project. Evidence suggests that incorporating these services into the program will prove beneficial in a number of ways, such as providing:

Vet services are available to homeless pet owners on Thursdays and Fridays

A better chance of getting the homeless into housing

The issue of homeless people with pets being refused housing opportunities because of "no pets" policies can be mitigated by having Elica providers designate these cherished companions as medically necessary service animals.

An increase in the number of those willing to receive services

Veterinary services attract larger numbers of hard to reach individuals, who are often more open to receiving assistance themselves when their pets are also being cared for.

Improved health outcomes for people and pets

People and pets living in unhealthy conditions can pass certain diseases to one another. Treating both patient and pet will result in better health outcomes for both of them.

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Open Payments Information

For informational purposes only, a link to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Open Payments web page is provided here. The federal Physician Payments Sunshine Act requires that detailed information about payment and other payments of value worth over ten dollars ($10) from manufacturers of drugs, medical devices, and biologics to physicians and teaching hospitals be made available to the public.

The Open Payments database is a federal tool used to search payments made by drug and device companies to physicians and teaching hospitals. It can be found at https://openpaymentsdata.cms.gov