DATE: October 13, 2015
TO: Mayor and City Council
FROM: Garrett Contreras, Fire Chief
SUBJECT
Title
Firehouse Clinic Memorandum of Understanding
End
RECOMMENDATION
Recommendation
That Council adopts the attached resolution (Attachment I) authorizing the City Manager to negotiate and execute a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the City and Tiburcio Vasquez Health Center (TVHC) for the operation of a Firehouse Clinic at Fire Station Number 7 in a form approved by the City Attorney.
Body
BACKGROUND
On June 17, 2014, the City Council approved the construction contract to build a new Fire Station Number 7. As has been noted in previous staff reports, the construction of this new fire station also presented an opportunity to partner with Alameda County on an innovative health care delivery model being developed in the County.
According to the Alameda County Public Health Department, health care coverage is unaffordable for more than 200,000 residents in Alameda County. Many of these uninsured residents use emergency rooms (ER) throughout the County as their primary health care providers, creating undue burden and overcrowding in these ERs. In addition, there is a significant shortage of primary and preventative care health providers in the County.
From an innovative and forward thinking effort to address these issues, there evolved the concept of a Firehouse Clinic. These centers could provide a new level of localized care that would be fully integrated into the existing County health care delivery system. The clinics would be co-located at fire station sites in Alameda County and have limited-scope staffing that would be a referral point for sub-acute 911 calls (approximately 30,000 calls annually in Alameda County that currently use emergency room services); and would also help provide discharge follow-up for local residents within forty-eight hours of discharge from Acute C...
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