El Camino Health is using its Community Benefit Program to provide foundational support for local health initiatives by investing $3.5 million in grants and sponsorships in fiscal year 2022.
“We are pleased to provide continued support to our Community Benefit grantees who have weathered unique challenges as the pandemic continues,” said Dan Woods, chief executive officer of El Camino Health, “We have strong connections to the communities we serve, and the programs and services provided by the grantees are more important now than ever before.”
As El Camino Health celebrates its 60th anniversary, it is continuing to act on the belief that a healthy community benefits all. Each fiscal year, the Community Benefit Program allocates crucial funding to healthcare services outside of El Camino Health with the mission to expand healthcare access across barriers of age, education and income levels through grants and sponsorships. Since 2007, El Camino Health has contributed nearly $823 million in community benefit, which also includes financial assistance and subsidized health services.
“El Camino Health’s critical grant supports our multilingual — English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Spanish and Vietnamese — medical assistant (MA) and patient navigator (PN) roles at our San Jose clinics,” said Sarita Kohli, president and CEO of Asian Americans for Community Involvement (AACI), one of El Camino Health’s 44 grant partners. “These important team members provide services in patients’ native languages, serving as the first point of contact for the safe and timely clinical care that we deliver to low-income individuals and families.”
AACI is an example of the critical grant partners supported by El Camino Health’s Community Benefit Program. AACI’s Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) provides primary care and integrated behavioral health services to low-income and/or immigrant individuals and families across Santa Clara County at two clinic sites in San Jose. 72 percent of AACI’s patients also have limited to no English proficiency and are best served in a language other than English.
Every three years, El Camino Health collaborates with other local not-for-profit hospitals and health systems to conduct a Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA). This informs the implementation strategy and grant making process. The most recent assessment illustrated the need to prioritize programs addressing issues such as healthcare access and delivery, diabetes and obesity, behavioral health, cognitive decline, domestic violence, oral health, and economic and housing stability.
The El Camino Hospital Board of Directors approved funding for 44 programs to support in fiscal year 2022, which include school districts, nonprofit organizations, safety-net clinics and community service agencies. Each of the selected programs is dedicated to addressing the health needs of underserved and vulnerable community members in Campbell, Cupertino, Los Gatos, San Jose, Santa Clara and Saratoga.
The FY22 Community Benefit grant partner snapshot may be viewed online.
For more information on the El Camino Health Community Benefit Program, visit https://www.elcaminohealth.org/about-us/community-benefit.
About El Camino Health
El Camino Health provides a personalized healthcare experience at two not-for-profit acute care hospitals in Los Gatos and Mountain View and at primary care, multi-specialty care, and urgent care locations across Santa Clara County. For nearly sixty years, the organization has grown to meet the needs of individuals and communities it serves. Bringing together the best in new technology and advanced medicine, the network of nationally recognized physicians and care teams deliver high quality, compassionate care. Key service lines include behavioral health, cancer, heart and vascular, mother-baby, neurology, orthopedics, spine, urology and women's health. The hospitals have earned numerous awards for clinical excellence, including being named as a top 100 hospital in the nation by Fortune/IBM Watson Health and Newsweek, Best Maternity Care Hospital for Los Gatos hospital by Newsweek, and earning a 5-Star Overall Hospital Quality Rating from Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). El Camino Health has earned four consecutive American Nurses Credentialing Center Magnet Recognitions for nursing excellence and quality patient care.