Equitable Health Care for Underserved Communities

Health care access

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

As of 2023, 9% of our immediate community is uninsured and 75,518 are unhoused in LA County. These vulnerable populations include our patients, and they’re at risk of insufficient care or forgoing care altogether if there isn’t a free, accessible option in their community.
Vida serves patients across the San Fernando Valley focusing on high-need areas because there is a shortage of affordable, quality health care options—especially the unhoused. These patients include those who previously may have skipped a health care visit for anything from routine care to check ups for a chronic illness (of which 74% of our community suffers from at least one). Others are unhoused and don’t have shoes, have diabetes affecting their feet, or have suffered injuries that need attention before turning into a more severe health issue like sepsis. Vida’s Mobile and Foot Care Clinic Programs were designed to reach these populations through dignified, high-quality health care in their communities.

By offering free appointments at our clinics, Vida will ensure that financial, access, or insurance barriers don't prevent individuals from accessing routine and necessary medical care. We will operate our clinic 1-2 days a week, as we do now, and the mobile foot care clinic will operate one day a week with the support of our part-time providers who are doctors and physicians assistants, and staff, as well as our dedicated volunteers who care for patients week to week.
During patient visits, we will provide health screenings, chronic illness management, help patients access discounted lab testing or prescription drugs, provide detailed nutrition plans, or make specialist appointments. We will also use our mobile units to care for new and returning patients in their neighborhoods and provide routine care and even medical supplies as needed. These supplies include new socks and shoes for the unhoused, medical supplies such as glucose supplies, bandages, and blood pressure monitors for those who need support managing chronic illnesses, and even walkers or canes to help patients manage their health until our next visit. Lastly, we will educate and help patients understand and enroll in health coverage programs, like Medi-Cal to expand their health care options if available to them.

Our vision is to break down systemic barriers to health. Our clinics, specifically the Foot Care Clinic, can transform LA County into a community where everyone can find comprehensive, human-centric care no matter their socioeconomic status. Our programs focus on high-need neighborhoods like Pacoima, Arleta, and the City of San Fernando. For example, our unhoused patients in these neighborhoods have told us other clinics don’t reach them or don’t return often enough to provide consistent care. In using our Foot Care Clinic to build trust, we can also provide health screenings and help determine if patients qualify for other public health benefits. Vida's long-term goal is to operate full-time clinics for patients who need us. While we have the equipment, processes, and experience to do that, we’re still building our capacity. Our short-term goal is to increase our reach to more underserved patients and chip away at health inequities for the uninsured and unhoused.

We measure our impact through patient visits and health outcomes such as tracking improvements in patients' health through specific indicators such as blood pressure levels, glucose levels, chronic illness status, and adherence to care routines. We’re also beginning to measure patient retention and continuity, and distribute questionnaires to track common barriers to care. Vida has cared for 224 patients so far this year on our limited clinic schedule. This includes 103 foot care patients who have also received health screenings they otherwise would not have. In 2023 we saw patients at 34 community clinic days for the unhoused and during health fairs, providing 205 health visits via our mobile unit alone. Based on this growth, we know there are still more patients we could care for. As our program grows, we expect to collect more feedback and data to identify the long-term outcomes of patients and if/when they move out of our care into health care programs or become insured.