2024 ANNUAL REPORT
GROWING, TOGETHER
Welcome to our 2024 Annual Report. Within this year's look back, you'll find a letter from our CEO, our service numbers for 2024, and stories about our year. Thank you to the patients, group participants, and employees who gave their permission to share their stories and photos here. As always, we are grateful for the generous financial support of community members, foundations, and government funders. It's because of this support that La Clinica's progress is possible.
FROM THE CEO
What can regular health care mean? You might think about the ability to see your care provider in a timely way, get a procedure done for not too much money, or keep your teeth and gums in top shape.
It can mean all of that, of course. For lots of the people we serve, it means so much more.
An employee told a story recently about someone La Clinica had helped. The woman was living in a local shelter, without long-term housing. She struggled with mental health and because of that struggled to keep a job. Without a job, she couldn’t keep an apartment. She didn’t have resources of her own to stop the swirl that kept her in chaos.
Through our outreach with community partners, she got the help she needed to begin to piece together a life that works.
I am in my 25th year as La Clinica’s CEO, and I’ve seen similar stories play out in many, many ways over the years. I am proud to say our staff has made the difference thousands of times between death and life, between disease and health, between pain and joy. We are not perfect, and in a system that is sometimes broken, La Clinica is aiming to be the change.
In the past year, as you’ll see in the stories in this report, we’ve created ways to hire enough new medical providers that we will be able to welcome thousands of new patients as our staff grows over the coming year. We have built training programs and new ways of providing care. We have opened new locations and served new populations. We have strengthened partnerships across the community.
True to our longstanding history, we have reaffirmed our deep commitment to serving all people and to welcoming them into our care no matter who they are.
We do all of this because every day we see the real difference access to care makes in real lives in our community. Our path feels critical in Jackson County, where many thousands of people continue to lack regular access to services that can help them live their healthiest lives. We are grateful every day for both the opportunity to make a difference and the support of this community as we grow.
Brenda Johnson, RN, MBA
CEO
OUR 2024 IN IMAGES
WHEN ACCESS MATTERS
Bill and Ellen Wayker couldn't find a doctor here. An ER visit turned their concerns urgent
Bill and Ellen Wayker moved to Medford last fall to be closer to family. Upkeep on a Los Gatos, California, cottage they had called home for 45 years had become too much for Bill, now 90, and Ellen, 80. Leaving a beloved home and a community where they had deep roots was hard. And finding the health care they needed in the Rogue Valley proved difficult, too.
Like much of Oregon and the country as a whole, Jackson County has a shortage of primary care providers. In call after call to various medical offices, the Waykers were told no new patients were being accepted or the wait for appointments would likely be months.
“At our ages, we can’t go without a doctor,” Bill said.
When he came down with a bad cough, the couple had to turn to a local emergency room. He left with a diagnosis of the flu and heart failure. That worrying news came with a referral to La Clinica for follow-up care.
La Clinica’s commitment to making sure everyone gets care when it is needed has spurred hiring and training of medical providers and other staff. It has led to strong partnerships, new locations, and additional services outlined throughout this annual report. And it resulted in 4,165 new patients—including both Bill and Ellen— starting care at La Clinica last year.
“I’m really proud of the growth we’ve had in reaching more patients, in recruiting and training more primary care providers, and improving our quality scores,” La Clinica’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Alftine said. “We know there is a persistent need, and we will continue to work on the systems and culture of care to meet it.”
Bill got an appointment with Physician Associate Garrett Sonntag, who started at La Clinica’s advanced practitioner training program, a residency for new nurse practitioners and physician associates, and now sees new patients each week as a regular provider at Phoenix Health Center. The Waykers appreciated Garrett’s energy and the time he dedicated to them so much that Ellen quickly became one of his patients, too.
Medication and a low-salt diet have Bill feeling good as he manages his heart failure. Ellen recently fell and broke her shoulder, but she knows her primary care is in good hands.
“We’re not looking for a doctor anymore,” she said. “The whole staff here at La Clinica is so personable, so friendly.”
“We wouldn’t want to go anywhere else,” Bill confirmed.
BUILDING ON TEAMS
At Central Point Health Center, employees reorganized to serve more patients. The result? Improved health
At the end of 2023, the staff of La Clinica's Central Point Health Center set out on an experiment: They would try reorganizing into an enhanced team-based model. It meant the team could serve more people, but it also meant some potentially unpopular changes; for example, patients wouldn't get to see their doctor every visit. A year later, the new system is so popular and patients' health scores have improved so much, La Clinica is plotting steps to put it in place at other centers.
What's the outcome? High blood pressure and diabetes are the chronic diseases that most frequently affect La Clinica patients. Since the new approach to care has been in place, patients who historically struggled to manage high blood pressure have improved their results 15 points, with 84% of patients managing their blood pressure within targeted ranges. Diabetes patients have improved their overall disease control by 8 points, resulting in 84% of patients managing their diabetes within targeted ranges.
What's next? La Clinica leaders are exploring expanding this approach to other health centers in 2025.
STEPPING UP FOR BEHAVIORAL HEALTH
Approach adjusts care based on what the patient needs
Thousands of La Clinica patients get help with emotions, thoughts, and behaviors every year. La Clinica is using an approach to this care that’s new to the Rogue Valley and employs clinical leaders working behind the scenes to ensure patients are getting the level of care they need quickly. This “stepped” approach identifies five levels of support—from simple lifestyle coaching to intensive residential care offered by partner organizations—in a tool that all providers can use when they encounter a patient in need of behavioral health support. La Clinica is also supporting this approach with colleagues at Southern Oregon Pediatrics.
What’s next? La Clinica is creating a behavioral health fellowship program that will serve as a training ground for new graduates. It will begin in 2026.
Making this possible: La Clinica is expanding behavioral health services and workforce training thanks to an $839,000 state workforce development grant and Ashland Community Health Foundation support for behavioral health interns.
ACUTE CARE AND X-RAY
New services ensure patients can get same-day care for common ailments and injuries
A La Clinica campus of health services is forming off Market Street in east Medford, and a foundational piece of that opened in June. During the COVID pandemic, La Clinica converted a tiny storage building into a spot for respiratory triage; it eventually became the first Acute Care Clinic. In June 2024, the organization moved that operation to a new Acute Care Clinic four times the size of the original one. In fall, thanks to technical assistance from community partner Valley Immediate Care, La Clinica added its first x-ray services, enabling staff to handle patients with broken bones and more.
What’s next? Now that the larger building is open, planners have turned their attention back to the original Acute Care Clinic, a smaller building across the driveway. Work has begun there on what will become the organization’s first standalone pharmacy in late 2025. La Clinica Community Pharmacy -Market Street, will be open to the community. People who are La Clinica patients will have access to low-cost medication through a special discount program.
Making this possible: La Clinica is grateful for the significant community, foundation, and legislative support, about $7 million in all, that has made the Acute Care Clinic and pharmacy possible. It is also grateful for support for x-ray equipment from the Joe and Frances Naumes Family Foundation and the American Rescue Plan Act/Health Center Infrastructure Support.
STRENGTHENED GENDER SERVICES
Funding supports work to create an advisory council and add structure to program
La Clinica's healthcare providers have been providing gender-affirming services for years. A grant from a Portland organization in 2024 provided a large boost to the program, allowing leaders to build training, safety, policy, and procedure into the work to ensure it is serving people in the best possible ways. La Clinica hired staff to coordinate the program, ensuring patients directed the needs of the program and staff received necessary training. A Gender Affirming Care Advisory Council now supports La Clinica as it develops this care.
Making this possible: A $750,000 18-month grant from Portland-based Seeding Justice has allowed La Clinica to build the program.
OUR UNIVERSITY PARTNERSHIP
La Clinica steps in to run SOU's student health center in a unique Oregon collaboration
A partnership between Southern Oregon University and La Clinica launched in fall 2024 has kept health services available on campus in Oregon's first collaboration between a university and a community health center. As La Clinica patients, students now have access to all La Clinica services, including dental care, pharmacy, and education and support services.
What’s next? La Clinica is launching another school partnership later this year in Rogue River, where a La Clinica health center for youth will take shape in a new early learning center building in the community. That center is expected to open in fall 2025.
2024 SERVICE REPORT
TOTAL PATIENTS SERVED: 29,268
TOTAL PATIENT INTERACTIONS: 121,429
WHAT OUR PATIENTS SAY
We seek regular feedback from patients to continually improve services. For 2024, these are the organization's average scores (of 100% total) on five service measures. La Clinica has two focuses for this work in 2025: building its Patient Insight Council, which provides guidance on staff decisions, and continuing to build staff to create timely access to services.
OUR MISSION
We serve the people who need us most through exceptional, affordable, and compassionate care, inspiring all those we touch to lead full and healthy lives.
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Thank you for reading. We are grateful for the community support that makes our work possible every year.
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