Congressionally Directed Spending for Construction Projects - Organization: White Memorial Community Health Center (WMCHC) Address: 1828 E. Cesar E. Chavez Ave., Suite 6100, Los Angeles, CA 90033 Project Director: Grace Floutsis, M.D. Phone: 323-859-3604 Fax: 323-987-1212 Email: floutsg@ah.org Website: https://wmchealthcenter.org/ Project Summary: WMCHC, a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) Look-Alike, began operations in May 2017 and received Look-Alike designation in April 2018. WMCHC offers a wide range of primary and preventive health care services with a special focus on children and adolescent patients (82% are under the age of 18) and their families, regardless of ability to pay. Our clinics are located in East Los Angeles, serving some of the most poverty-stricken neighborhoods in the state and nation. In the five years that WMCHC has operated, it has seen steady year-over-year growth (averaging 15%) in the number of patients served. Our health center currently serves more than 20,000 patients annually from predominantly Hispanic/Latino backgrounds, with most households living at or below 200% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines (FPG). Demand for services continues to increase and projected growth based on our five-year history indicates that our current clinical sites will not have the capacity to fully meet demand beyond 2023, which based on conservative growth estimates of approximately 10% per year would increase the number of patients to 23,000 and the number of visits to more than 70,000 per year. In order to increase access to much needed primary care and to continue to grow all of our service lines, WMCHC proposes to expand to a fourth clinical site on the hospital campus of Adventist Health White Memorial (AHWM) in Medical Office Building 1, Suite 456, which was the site of the pediatric practice that was initially incorporated into WMCHC. This 9,361 square foot clinical space will be renovated to meet OSHPD 3 requirements and become a fully licensed clinic offering expanded hours of service during evenings and weekends. The new site would be equipped with 18 exam rooms and five counseling rooms, and would be designed to function as a Patient-Centered Medical Home. We propose to staff the clinic with four physicians and four family nurse practitioners, three licensed clinical social workers (LCSW), one behavioral health case manager, and two chronic care coordinators to serve complex care patients, along with 19 support staff. At capacity, by Year 3 of operations the new clinic will serve more than 8,000 patients and provide more than 24,000 medical visits and 3,600 behavioral health visits annually. WMCHC’s service area includes the low-income Los Angeles communities of Boyle Heights, Maywood, Bell Gardens, Bell, Huntington Park, South Gate, and their adjacent neighborhoods. Within this defined Health Center Program service area, and in accordance with FQHC Look-Alike guidelines, WMCHC’s target population are low-income residents, specifically those living at or below 200% of the FPG. Since beginning operations in 2017, WMCHC has grown to serve nearly 19,000 individuals and families residing within a service area with a total population of 1.1 million, according to recent U.S. Census Bureau data, where more than one in two residents (55.3%) are living at or below 200% of the FPG and one-quarter (24.9%) live at or below 100% of the FPG. More than one-half of residents (57.4%) are either on Medi-Cal or medically uninsured. The largest percentage identify as Hispanic or Latino (86.2). We also know from our most recent Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA), completed in early 2022, that significant health disparities persist in our service area, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as ongoing socioeconomic challenges, lack of health coverage, low education levels, transportation challenges, and other barriers to accessing care.
