Clinton Foundation initiative gave the Coachella Valley a healthy boost

The five-year Coachella Valley laboratory experiment that was the Clinton Health Matters Initiative has been a good thing for our desert.

The Clinton Foundation’s effort to spur action among all who could make a difference to improve community health and wellness notched some important successes during its run.

The bringing together of hundreds of experts in these fields in 2012 for brainstorming sessions brought into clear focus some of our region’s most pressing needs. While there’s still plenty of work to be done on many of these deficiencies, the progress made in key areas has been impressive.

As reported by The Desert Sun’s Sherry Barkas, the foundation last week offered an assessment of how its collaborative effort with local stakeholders fared in bringing about the changes called for in the CHMI’s “Blueprint for Action.”

MORE: Report assesses the CHMI effort, what lies ahead

Here are some of the highlights:

More of us are insured: According to the nonprofit Health Assessment and Research for Communities, Inc. (HARC), 34 percent of Coachella Valley residents didn’t have health insurance in 2013. By 2016, just 14 percent of valley residents lacked insurance. Getting more people covered for care was one of the main goals in the Blueprint. CHMI partners Desert Regional Medical Center, JFK Memorial Hospital and the Desert Healthcare District/Foundation put significant resources to get people signed up after the Affordable Care Act was adopted.

Boosting physician numbers: Officials say “healthy” areas have about one doctor for every 2,000 residents. Some areas of our valley fall far short of that preferred ratio. Desert Hot Springs, for example, has one physician for every 9,440 residents; the ratio in parts of the eastern Coachella Valley is 1 per 8,407. Change is coming, however. The UCR School of Medicine developed a Family Residency Program with Desert Regional Medical Center and Desert Healthcare District. The CHMI added the weight of its network to help nurture this existing collaboration, which is expected to add six new doctors to the valley this year.

Living healthier: Another Blueprint goal was changing behaviors and education – for the better. CHMI brought together UCR’s School of Medicine, Planned Parenthood and Palm Springs Unified School District to create a more effective sex education curriculum. District officials say the effort – which uses young, resident physicians to teach the course – was developed via a much better timeline and has been so well-received it likely will be expanded beyond the current four middle schools that use it. The ultimate goal: Cutting the teen birth rate (ages 15-19), which in 2013 was 26.3 per 1,000 births in Riverside County.

Tackling HIV/AIDS: CMHI brought its weight to Desert AIDS Project’s efforts to get everyone in the valley older than age 12 tested for HIV, in addition to getting those who test positive into and committed to treatment. DAP says its statistics show almost a doubling of HIV tests done by the project – from 2,575 in 2013 to 4,919 in 2016 – the final year of the three-year intensive “Get Tested Coachella Valley” push. DAP’s efforts to expand testing and treatment continue, however.

Connecting the community: The CHMI has helped push for the expansion of the Desert Healthcare District to allow it to provide services to the eastern Coachella Valley. The district currently covers the western valley to Cook Street in Palm Desert. We like this “One Coachella Valley” idea for a truly umbrella health care district, but still need to learn how these services will be paid for before deciding a stance on the November 2018 ballot measure authorizing the move.

The Editorial Board has cheered many of the above-mentioned efforts over the years. CHMI Regional Director Tricia Gehrlein says the initiative will maintain its links to the valley, working on problems like the opioid crisis as it uses what it learned here to create and grow similar programs in other U.S. communities.

Our valley will continue to benefit from the different programs borne and nurtured from this powerful partnership. Local stakeholders promise that their work will continue.

And this truly is important work. Our desert community continues to grow and the needs highlighted in the CHMI Blueprint will not simply go away.

With renewed uncertainty surrounding national health care policy, it is imperative that the local focus remains trained on finding solutions to those problems we can see and do the heavy lifting in solving ourselves.