Case Statement

Contra Costa County is an optimal place to live, work, and raise a family. It features a mild climate, a wide range of recreational and intellectual opportunities, and extraordinary natural resources. It is also a region of contrasts. It has both affluent and poor citizens. Several of its school districts rank at the top in statewide educational achievement and yet, under-performing schools are also within its boundaries.

Contra Costa County and local governments share a commitment to provide an infrastructure that provides for the safety and comfort of all its residents. Within this infrastructure is a yet unknown healthcare asset that plays an important, yet unacknowledged, role in ensuring that all Contra Costa residents are afforded quality healthcare.

This valuable asset consists of the Contra Costa Regional Medical Center and the Contra Costa Health Centers (CCRMC and CCHC, respectively). This tax-assisted-not tax-supported-public healthcare delivery system is an acknowledged state and national model, providing care to its most vulnerable citizens. Its primary mission is to offer care to the uninsured and underinsured residents of the County, estimated at over 100,000.

This system excels at being an integrated healthcare delivery system that has, at its core, an extensive ambulatory care system consisting of 10 health centers located in East, Central, and West County. The Centers provide primary, specialty, and dental care where patients live.

It is the only healthcare system in Contra Costa County that provides 24-hour, 7-days-a-week Psychiatric Emergency services to all residents of the County. This vital service is augmented by both in-patient psychiatric and in-patient geriatric services; the latter staffed by geriatric psychiatrists and geriatricians.

The system boasts the only university-affiliated residency-training program in Contra Costa County. Considered to be one of the top ten in the U.S., it attracts graduate medical students from all over the nation. The Family Practice Residency Training Program, affiliated with the University of California, Davis Medical School, has been training family physicians for over 28 years. In fact, your family practitioner may have been trained by us.

Contra Costa residents are fortunate the Board of Supervisors supported the building of our beautiful regional hospital. It is an asset to the community. -- Resident

The first publicly supported, federally qualified HMO in the United States, the Contra Costa Health Plan is a 60,000-member, staff model HMO, "joined at the hip" to the Hospital and Health Centers where its members receive their care. Over 9,000 County employees and their families are members of the Contra Costa Health Plan, which strongly attests to the breadth and quality of its services.

The Contra Costa Regional Health Foundation was recently established by a number of community leaders in business, law, education, and health. These committed founding directors understand the critical need for the services provided by CCRMC and CCHC, and believe that those services and the health care providers should have a community-based support organization.

The Contra Costa Regional Health Foundation provides an opportunity for all the residents of our community to contribute to the long-term viability of CCRMC and CCHC. In partnership with the members of this community, this valuable asset should be known and used throughout the county. Please join us in this effort.