Greetings to All! The last two years have been extraordinarily challenging to our patients and staff. Still, because of your dedication, perseverance, and professionalism, San Joaquin County Clinics has been a beacon in the community and continues to ensure our patients have access to the high-quality care they deserve.

On behalf of the SJCC leadership team, I want to THANK YOU for all your contributions. We are so proud of all you have done and continue to do to serve our community. Together we’ve ensured that our patients have been cared for, and SJCC has been able to begin transforming itself to better meet their needs in the future.

Our leadership team realizes that internal communications have suffered during the pandemic and is committed to improving that in a variety of ways including a new intranet site, regular meetings and email communications, and this employee newsletter.

So, welcome to the first edition of the newsletter. We intend for this to grow into a powerful tool for leadership and others to report to staff about goings on at SJCC as well as things happening in the community that impact us and our patients.

We very much want it to be something that meets your needs and engages you, so we ask that you please provide us any feedback, thoughts on topics of interest, individuals to recognize, or any other ideas to improve the newsletter. We anticipate its content will continually improve over time based on your feedback and suggestions.

As you all know, the San Joaquin County Clinics are now organizationally independent of San Joaquin General Hospital. We still have a strong relationship with the hospital, including leasing some of our current clinic sites from the hospital, but SJCC is now a separate entity with a unique mission and vision and associated values and goals that were finalized during the completion of a three-year strategic plan recently adopted by our Board of Directors. The strategic planning process identified sixty-seven separate priority projects with thirteen different leaders focused on achieving our goals over the next three years .

One of the most near-term strategies that I’d like to briefly mention is our priority to “Build Our Identity” in the aftermath of our transition from San Joaquin General Hospital. First, working with marketing and branding consultants, we have developed a comprehensive rebranding plan and are in the early stages of its implementation. In the initial steps of rolling out the rebranding plan, you will see our new name, new logos, and upgrades to our facilities. New marketing and branding materials will be visible throughout San Joaquin County. Longer term efforts to evolve our social media channels, our community engagement activities, and to operationalize the brand internally will follow. We’re excited to launch the new brand! You’ll be introduced to it soon and future issues of this newsletter will be rebranded to showcase our new identity. There are already some physical clues regarding our new brand image that you’ll notice in our facilities. Please pardon our dust while we work to ready our sites for the brand launch.

Another exciting achievement this past year has been the effort to physically consolidate our administrative functions and to build internal capacity in a variety of functional areas like human resources, IT, and finance. To improve administrative efficiency for SJCC, we are in the process of consolidating personnel at new administrative headquarters in Stockton. We are fortunate that grant funding has provided support for the first three years of the lease which allows us to stabilize in the new environment while pursuing the strategic initiatives that can promote our sustainability and growth.

I hope that you are as excited about the current and upcoming changes to our organization as I am. We will share more details about the repositioning of SJCC in future newsletters and give our team members more awareness of the priority projects that are underway. Many of you may already be involved in the development and execution of many of these efforts moving forward, and we appreciate the contributions you’ll bring.

Kendahl Romney, LVN

As a part of each issue of our newsletter, we will be briefly introducing a member of SJCC’s staff. Our hope is this will build awareness of the incredible folks that work among us and will help us to cultivate highly effective teams as we carry out our important mission. In this issue, we are spotlighting Kendahl Romney, LVN, one of our team members since 2014.

Kendahl grew up in Elk Grove, California where she was a member of the first graduating class of Elk Grove’s Franklin High School. She is now pursuing her undergraduate degree (B.S. in Administration) through Grand Canyon University with an expected completion in late 2023.

Kendahl is an extraordinarily busy and positive person who loves working at SJCC. She has a strong desire to contribute to making SJCC an even better place to work, and for helping SJCC’s patients with improved access to high quality care.

In addition to her work as a proud parent, member of patient care teams, and a full-time student, Kendahl is involved in a variety of other activities at SJCC including:

• Participating in the leadership of the Employee and Patient Satisfaction (EAPS) Committee which was formed in December 2021 to identify and prevent employee burnout, a top priority for SJCC leadership. EAPS is currently working with HR to complete the development of a tool to help employees understand and recognize signs of burnout and means for addressing it.
• Managing the Vaccines for Children (VFC) and Vaccines for Adults (VFA) programs.
• Serving as the SJCC liaison and lead nurse for the Discovery Challenge Academy. This residential program for at-risk youth is run by the California National Guard in partnership with the San Joaquin County Office of Education. SJCC is responsible for providing medical care for the 120-250 cadets in the program every six months.
• Participating as a member of the COVID testing and vaccination team since the beginning of the pandemic.
• Serving as a member of the Board for the SJGH Patient Helping Fund.

Fun Facts about Kendahl

What is your favorite food?
A nice steak and/or Mac and Cheese

What are you streaming?
Yellowstone

Who is your favorite actress?
Reese Witherspoon

Obsession?
Cows – as demonstrated by the pictures and figurines in my workspace

The next several months bring important changes to the Medi-Cal program, and subsequently to many of our patients. While SJCC does not currently provide enrollment assistance nor have a role in the Medi-Cal eligibility process, we want our team members to be aware of the changes since they’ll potentially affect those we serve. SJCC anticipates adding eligibility workers to its staff in the next fiscal year beginning July 1, 2022.

Medi-Cal Expansion

Effective May 1, all California residents aged 50 and over who otherwise meet Medi-Cal income eligibility criteria will be able to enroll in Full Scope Medi-Cal regardless of immigration status. This means many undocumented residents that have not been able to enroll in Medi-Cal in the past will now be able to do so, including those who have had to seek care through self-pay or other options. Immigrants who are currently enrolled in Limited Scope Medi-Cal for emergency services or other limited benefits will automatically transition to Full Scope Medi-Cal effective May 1 and will be notified of this change. Once enrolled in Full Scope Medi-Cal, the beneficiaries will choose a Medi-Cal health plan and a PCP through the normal processes.

Medi-Cal Redeterminations

Usually Medi-Cal beneficiaries undergo an annual redetermination to re-verify income qualifications, however that process has been pended during the Public Health Emergency based on federal requirements. It is expected that redeterminations will be restarted—possibly as soon as July 2022—and continue on a rolling basis for up to 12 months as all Medi-Cal recipients are reassessed. Mailings and communication from the state and county will be ongoing, and stakeholders are concerned that because redeterminations haven’t occurred in nearly two years, the address and contact information on file may no longer be correct.

If you know a Medi-Cal patient has recently moved, encourage them to contact their eligibility worker to ensure their contact information is updated so they don’t miss important mailings or experience a disruption in eligibility.

Welcome to the first edition of the SJCC newsletter! We appreciate all your contributions during these uncertain times and we’re hopeful the newsletter is one tool we can use to help you stay informed as we share updates, introduce new programs and services, and spotlight some of our amazing team members.

As you have begun to see and hear, changes are underway at SJCC as we position ourselves for our future growth. In the coming weeks you’ll be seeing some of these changes come to life!

Drive-Through COVID Testing
SJCC stopped staffing its internal French Camp drive-through COVID testing operation as of April 1 due to a significant decrease in testing demand and the need for our staff to return to their direct patient care responsibilities in the clinics as more patients start coming back for face-to-face care.

SJCC’s drive-through testing site was the first and longest-lasting testing site for our community. In fact, more than 100,000 tests have been conducted there since its inception in April 2020. SJGH Employee Health Services staff will be assuming responsibility for operating the testing site going forward in order to routinely serve staff and SJGH’s pre-operative patients. This staffing change should be transparent to those receiving services.

Improving Care Through Increased In-person Visits and Increasing Telehealth Visits by Video
With patients recognizing the importance of seeking care for conditions that weren’t prioritized during the pandemic, SJCC is working to encourage patients to come to the clinics for in-person visits so they can receive needed care they have delayed as well as be provided in-person screenings and immunizations. At the same time, there is still an opportunity to increase the percentage of telehealth visits provided by video (versus audio-only telephonic visits), particularly for patients that have found these visits convenient, where clinically appropriate. New workflows are being developed to facilitate these video visits. With approximately two percent of our visits currently occurring via video-enabled modalities, we are seeking to move that figure up to at least 20 percent in the next six months.

Upgrades to Clinic Facilities
As you’ve probably seen, SJCC is currently painting and reflooring its French Camp and California Street clinic sites. We also plan to use grant funding to upgrade some of the clinic furniture. In the coming weeks, you’ll also see updates to signage and wayfinding for our patients and guests. We’re excited to see this fresh new look and improve the experience for all that work here and all that visit us.

Adding Clinic Staffing
SJCC is actively recruiting additional support staff for clinics. We have been successful at hiring three new medical assistants so far in the past month and continue to add to our patient registration and call center team. While hiring has been challenging during the pandemic across the national health care industry, heavy recruitment activity continues, and we encourage our team members to refer qualified candidates. A listing of open positions is available on the County’s HR website.

Joella Brewer, LCSW, will be joining our clinics on April 25. We continue to work to expand our team to support behavioral health needs of our patients.

SJCC Human Resources
Tanya Ramirez is SJCC’s recently hired Human Resources Coordinator. Tanya was business manager for St. Joseph Surgery Center prior to joining SJCC and was a business manager with Lodi Memorial Hospital before that. Tanya’s experience with human resource management and business management will be an asset as we build our team. Welcome Tanya!

SJCC Intranet Site
SJCC IT staff has worked with County ISD staff on finalizing the design and development plan for its new intranet site. It is shaping up to be an engaging and informational site. Once it launches, we encourage the team to check the intranet frequently to find information about upcoming events, staff announcements, key resource documents and more. Stay tuned for a formal launch announcement.

Mobile Health Services
SJCC will soon begin taking its mobile unit on the road to provide primary care in underserved communities of San Joaquin County. Purchased with grant funding, the mobile unit is currently being used to provide COVID-19 testing and vaccines in the community, but under the direction of Joan Singson and her team, the unit will be redirected to support the provision of primary care and preventive screenings. Mobile health, coupled with SJCC’s expansion of telehealth, are important strategies to improving access to care for our community.