Monterey to integrate county health care system

MONTEREY – The Monterey County Board of Supervisors has authorised a program to combine the county’s health treatment system, making it simpler for sufferers to acquire the specialized treatment they will need.

The board unanimously voted Tuesday in favor of a approach by the county’s Overall health Division and Administrative Business and Natividad Healthcare Heart to coordinate patient care solutions.

Monterey County Director of Health Elsa Jimenez argued that the structure of the county’s current well being technique destinations the burden on patients to seek out care by the “complicated and occasionally unorganized techniques that we have made.

“Currently our system is fragmented, expert services are siloed,” she reported. “And when you consider about the demographics in our group, which tends to be an getting older inhabitants, a populace that may perhaps only talk Spanish or one more indigenous language that could not always be in a position to entry our devices, it seriously puts a big obligation on them.”

County and Natividad officials argued other huge, multi-county overall health programs like Sutter Wellness and Kaiser Permanente have already integrated their affected person treatment networks, and that accomplishing so will lead to enhanced client and staff pleasure.

In addition to approving the strategy, the board approved the creation of an ad hoc committee that will oversee the unification of the county’s health treatment program.

As element of the vote, county Supervisors Chris Lopez and Wendy Root Askew have been appointed to provide on the committee.
Root Askew observed that, after she broke her arm past calendar year, her doctor gave her a referral for physical remedy. That referral allowed her to program her appointment in the exact same well being care business office inside five minutes.

“Appropriate now, our county clinic patients do not have that capability to have that type of integrated care,” she mentioned. “They deserve to have that variety of built-in care, and the accountability for making this process lies on us.”

County well being and Natividad officers did not give a timeline for when the procedure will be absolutely built-in, as it will require various ways, which include price tag analyses and the alignment of healthcare file archives.