East Valley Community Health Center believes health care should not only focus on treating medical issues when they arise, but educating our patients about disease prevention and healthy lifestyle choices. As our organization continues to grow and live up to its mission of providing access to excellent health care while engaging and empowering our patients, the leadership team and medical staff are constantly looking for innovative ways to improve the well-being and the health of our surrounding communities. East Valley has launched many new programs, classes, and activities that focus on the importance of making healthy choices.
By integrating wellness, preventive health education, nutrition and behavioral health interventions, East Valley supports patients to take the right steps to prevent disease and implement permanent healthy lifestyle changes.
East Valley helps patients to focus on wellness in their lives by offering classes for chronic conditions. One key example is a program launched in 2014 that aims to help people with diabetes learn about their condition so that they can make positive health changes in their life. Each week, East Valley gathers a group of five to 15 patients to discuss a variety of topics related to diabetes. These educational sessions, designed to create long-term lifestyle changes, teach patients how to create healthy and balanced meal plans, daily exercise routines, etc. By providing medical knowledge and support from peers and medical professionals, people with diabetes are empowered to actively manage their disease.
Many of our patients at East Valley are young families or individuals who are just starting families and our organization has fantastic education opportunities for expecting families. In addition to our Comprehensive Perinatal Service Program, our monthly Baby Shower program is a highlight of our prenatal services. During the eighth month of their pregnancy, our prenatal patients are invited to attend a baby shower alongside other expecting mothers and loved ones where they are able to play fun games, win prizes and receive gifts, and most importantly, learn about how they can raise a healthy baby. The event brings together numerous specialists who teach the mothers about different aspects of raising a child, including how to care for a baby’s teeth, how to safely put the child to sleep to prevent SIDS, and the importance of early literacy for children. In addition, East Valley hosts training classes for soon-to-be parents on how they can properly install and use a car seat. At the end of the session, families who meet an income-based requirement are able to take home a free car seat to use for their baby.
Our organization believes in the importance of creating healthy communities one individual at a time. In addition to our medical, dental, and behavioral health services offered at our clinic sites, East Valley offers HIV testing through its mobile unit to more than 4,000 individuals with a higher risk of infection every year. We use the rapid testing method in order to provide results within 20 minutes after the test. If possible, all individuals testing positive are linked to our HIV Care services immediately. For more than five years, East Valley has implemented its CHICAS program, an HIV Prevention project working with transgender individuals who have a higher risk of infection in East San Gabriel and Pomona.
As part of our commitment to healthy communities, East Valley also offers Teen Responsibility workshops; these workshops make adolescents aware of reproductive health issues and how they can take control of their health. Our reproductive health specialists visit numerous high schools throughout the communities and provide these workshops, along with detailed flyers and information about how teens can make appointments at East Valley. We also have a special team of teen health specialists who run East Valley Teen’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Teens are encouraged to follow the social media sites, where they can learn facts and ask questions directly to our team.
For more than 45 years, East Valley Community Health Center has been a key health care provider of the San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys. There are currently four East Valley sites, in the cities of West Covina, Pomona, La Puente, and Covina. East Valley Community Health Center believes in the importance of developing healthy communities by using educational and patient-focused service. By enabling our patients to adopt healthy behaviors and choices, we are able to work towards the achievement of our mission of creating healthier communities.
Find out more about East Valley Community Health Center at https://www.evchc.org/
