Who
- Member hospitals: Mad River Community Hospital & St. Joseph Health Humboldt County
- Arcata Police Department
- Humboldt County Sheriff
- Waterfront Recovery Center
- Humboldt County Health and Human Services
- California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt
- K’ima:w Medical Center
- Open Door Health
- Humboldt County Community Safety Engagement Team
- North Coast Emergency Medical Services
- Yurok Potowat Health Village
What
Local stakeholder meetings and workgroup conversations continue in Humboldt County to advance care for patients struggling with behavioral health and substance use disorder needs. Three workgroups — law enforcement, crisis stabilization/triage, and workforce development — have been formed to carry forward the work of the collaborative.
On Aug. 2, the triage center workgroup discussed a proposal from Ruby Bayan, MD and John McManus of Waterfront Recovery Center for a triage center in the county. This proposal is being supported by Verily’s OneFifteen analytics, which help determine the patient volume necessary to establish sustainable billing. Meanwhile, one-on-one meetings with members of local law enforcement and tribes continue to further advance the efforts of the law enforcement and workforce development workgroups.
Of note from the workforce development workgroup: the imperative for caregiver training programs was to get creative in terms of candidate recruitment and class scheduling. This includes evaluating social determinants of health (SDOH) within their own student population and structuring programmatic support around the SDOH (such as providing hot meals for students when they are in class and offering employer-sponsored tuition). This will not only increase class size but should aid significantly in retention.