Title
Receive an updated response to Board Referral No. 2025.06, seeking to design a pilot program at the Alisal Health Center in East Salinas to better meet the healthcare language needs of our Indigenous-language-speaking patients.
Report
RECOMMENDATION:
It is recommended that the Board of Supervisors:
Receive an updated response to Board Referral No. 2025.06, seeking to design a pilot program at the Alisal Health Center in East Salinas to better meet the healthcare language needs of our Indigenous-language-speaking patients.
SUMMARY:
Board Referral No. 2025.06 was assigned on June 10, 2025, to the Health Department to design a pilot program for the Alisal Health Clinic in East Salinas to better meet the healthcare and language needs of our Indigenous-language-speaking patients. The referral aims to create a pilot program at the Alisal Health Center to include the following strategies: increase access to interpretation services by hiring Indigenous medical interpreters for appointments, while also recognizing the need for deeper system navigation and social support by employing community health workers to assist patients with completing forms, accessing resouces, and addressing other barriers to care, update the appointment system to flag whether a patient will need an indigenous interpreter for their appointment, provide cultural humility training for clinic staff on our Indigenous communities, and make available key patient information in Indigenous languages by mediums such as video or other digital outreach efforts, when possible, on matters, such as billing and coverage for medical expenses.
DISCUSSION:
Pursuant to the Board Referral, staff presented an initial response to the Board of Supervisors on July 8, 2025. Since then, the Health Department has made significant progress in designing and implementing the pilot program at the Alisal Health Center in collaboration with our partners.
Health Department staff, along with representatives f...
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