UCLA Homeless Program to Be Discussed at Regents This Week

We now have more detailed agenda information on the upcoming Regents meetings this week (August 18). At the Health Services Committee there will be a presentation on a new homeless health program at UCLA:

HOMELESS HEALTHCARE COLLABORATIVE, LOS ANGELES CAMPUS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Executive Vice President Byington will introduce speakers from the Los Angeles campus who have intervened to provide medical services to patients experiencing homelessness (PEH) in Los Angeles County through the use of mobile clinics. The agenda topic will be presented by Johnese Spisso, RN, MPA, who is the president of UCLA Health and CEO of the UCLA Hospital System, and Dr. Medell Briggs-Malonson, MD, MPH, Chief, Health Equity, Diversity and Inclusion for the UCLA Hospital and Clinic System.

BACKGROUND

Los Angeles County has over 66,000 people who are unsheltered or have temporary shelter. The COVID-19 pandemic caused an increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness (PEH) due to unforeseen economic hardships. Over the last five years, UCLA Health’s emergency departments (ED) have treated approximately 15,000 individual people experiencing homelessness for various medical, psychiatric, and social needs. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, UCLA Health recommitted to strengthening the clinical and preventive services for this unique and highly vulnerable population.

The UCLA Health Homeless Healthcare Collaborative program will expand access to efficient, equitable and high-quality healthcare to unsheltered and temporarily sheltered people throughout the greater Los Angeles area. The program will directly partner with academic, community health, and social service organizations to achieve improved health outcomes and connect these patients to critical social services, including housing and employment opportunities.

The Homeless Healthcare Collaborative will also focus more broadly on improving coordinated healthcare services for PEH throughout the Los Angeles region. The Collaborative is comprised of several long-standing programs, such as the David Geffen School of Medicine Student-Run Homeless Clinic, as well as novel mobile healthcare programs to expand health care and social services to PEH in the community. In addition to the UCLA Health Mobile Eye Clinic and the Venice Family Clinic Mobile Outreach Clinic, new outreach teams comprised of nurses, physicians, social workers, residents, and health science students will travel to areas of need in two customized medical vans. 

The teams will provide comprehensive primary and urgent care services in high-density areas (street and encampment outreach) and to individuals who would benefit from post-discharge evaluation following recent hospital, emergency room, or clinic visits (referral-based services). After an initial period of three months, the medical teams and fleet of vehicles will scale up in size and scope of healthcare services, based on identified community needs. Initially, the total projected patient volume served by UCLA’s mobile clinics is estimated to be 400 to 500 encounters per month. The medical vans will launch in September-October 2021.

Full description at https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/aug21/h4.pdf.

Note: The job of director of this program is still posted, so presumably the program won't start until somebody is in place in that role. See https://lensa.com/director-homeless-healthcare-collaborative-jobs/los-angeles/jd/312347560fe8b5e49ba305e6e780cc4c. It is possible, however, this is an old listing and that someone has been hired. On some job posting sites, the notice has been taken down. The Regents session will likely make clear what the status is.