Central Valley Health Foundation

The Central Valley Health Foundation provided financial support for the Central Valley Network, which includes Adventist Health Hanford, Adventist Health Selma, Adventist Health Reedley, Adventist Health Tulare and their related clinics. In addition, support is being provided for the hospice operated by Western Health Resources (WHR) and for other humanitarian purposes.Many employees at Adventist Health in the Central Valley support the Central Valley Health Foundations Employee Emergency Fund. The Employee Emergency Fund was created to support employees during an unexpected financial hardship. Employees are asked to fill out an application which is reviewed by Human Recourses and an established committee. Employees are eligible for up to $500 in financial assistance. In 2022, $18,942 was disbursed to 26 employees. Last year the committee reviewed an application from an employee who had lost their home unexpectedly and was living out of their vehicle. They requested money for gas as well as some toiletries. The committee voted to assist this employee financially and connect them to other helpful resources in our community. Adventist Health knows that our greatest strength is our employees, and the Employee Emergency Fund is one of the many ways Adventist Health invests in the wellbeing of our people. Adventist Health in the Central Valley has three birth centers, Hanford, Tulare, and Reedley. With thousands of deliveries happening each year, not every delivery outcome is a positive one. The Healing Hearts Fund was established by employees who wanted to do something to support the mothers who experience the loss of a baby at our hospitals. The Healing Hearts fund gives mothers the opportunity to have their childs funeral expenses covered up to $1,000. The Birth Centers also provide other forms of support which helps our patients and employees during a tragic time. The Central Valley Health Foundation has had a 5-year partnership with World Vision. World Vision provides our onsite warehouses with thousands of household goods. We receive shipments of diapers, personal hygiene items, furniture, and appliances. Anything that would help someone trying to re-establish their life during a difficult economic situation. Adventist Health reaches out to over 120 local nonprofits in the community to ensure that the items get to the individual and families with the most need. In 2022, the Foundation received 17 semi-truck shipments valued at $753,369. Over 17,800 individuals in our community benefited from these items. Some examples include: 1.Women with Vision Unlimited provided furniture, small kitchen appliances, lighting fixtures, and diapers to single family households in Kings County.2.Grandmas House is a non-profit who helps tutor school aged children after school in Tulare. Inspire Hope helped supply them with desks, book cases, plates and cleaning supplies for their facility. As part of their program they identified needs of the families they serve and were able to provide them with diapers, wipes, small kitchen appliances, lighting, fans/heaters, and floor mats.3.Howard Chapel is a non-profit organization whose focus is serving the homeless and less fortunate families in Hanford. They have provided over 500 homeless and families with items from the warehouse. Items such as sleeping bags, lanterns, air beds, floor mats, food items, hygiene items, and tents.The following story illustrates how the Central Valley Health Foundation is able to assist our hospitals in raising funds to provide the ability to serve our community:Angela Gutierrez, a medical assistant on Adventist Healths mobile care unit, was putting materials away after an event when a woman approached. Excuse me, maam, would you be able to take my blood pressure? the woman asked. Im not feeling well. She was shaking and said she felt dizzy.Angela immediately grabbed her blood pressure cuff to check her and read the numbers out loud. 280 over 180. Thats within the range of having a stroke. Angela helped the patient get to the closest emergency department, where she was admitted and treated.That was a close one, Angela says. If we hadnt been there, Id hate to think what wouldve happened to her. Once she was discharged, the woman returned to the Mobile Care unit with hugs and snacks. She knew we had saved her life and was so grateful we were there. For many of our community members who face transportation barriers, getting to the doctors office isnt always easy. Our mobile unit allows us to meet our community where they are and provide care physically and mentally. This program is entirely funded by donors and grants, and we need your help to keep it rolling. Were taking the best of what we have in our hospitals and our clinics, and we have equipped this mobile unit to go out into the areas that have not been seen before, explains Raul Ayala, MD, Ambulatory Medical Officer at Adventist Health Central Valley Network . We have towns that are less than 500 people or 1,000 people, and the next healthcare provider is maybe 30, 50 or even 100 miles away . The mobile unit is one part of our vision to bring healthcare including a growing number of medical specialties to clinics and sites throughout the region. This vision also includes the family medicine residency program at Adventist Health in the Central Valley and clinic rotations for medical assistant, physician assistant and nurse practitioner students from over 50 schools.Dr. Joseph Maddela, a third-year resident at Adventist Health, is grateful for the opportunity to serve in the mobile clinic. Having grown up in a rural community, its been my dream to give back to the people who raised me. Dr. Maddela and his colleagues provide care at clinics throughout the area and on the mobile unit, which travels across a 200-mile area and is fully equipped with the exam rooms, equipment and technology needed to provide care. I enjoyed getting to know the patients, learning what gives them hope, what makes them happy, and seeing their improvement through our care, he says. The mobile clinic also has increased the number of experiences and opportunities for students to learn more about Adventist Health, to learn more about the community, to learn more about how they can make a difference, says Dr. Ayala.Our mobile care unit visits schools, farms, homeless shelters and churches. This will allow us to find those patients that are in need, who dont visit a doctor, dont have access to good health care. and we will be that bridge that brings them from the community, into a medical home, because I know we provide the best health care in this Valley. God has given us this calling, and we need the community's support, says Dr. Ayala. Our dream is to have a mobile unit traveling north, east, south and west, serving our hard-to-reach communities. We have one unit, and it is doing incredible things and we are planning to add more units as the funds allow.Compassionate, high-quality patient care; life-saving and life-preserving medical and surgical services; advanced treatments in a community-based hospital; essential emergency services-these are the reasons we are here to serve our hospitals.