Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
The Forde Files No 122
Top, the Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District (TVHD) clinic on West E Street, the Guild building is on the right.
Clinic Manager Elizabeth Herrera, LVN (all three clinics).
The TVHD clinic in Mojave.
The TVHD clinic in California City.
Barbara Apicella, family nurse practitioner, in tiny office that was the laundry room in the 19th-century house (Tehachapi).
Donald Harwick, physicians assistant (Cal City).
Herrera and Rosalva Mendoza, "the best housekeeper ever" (Cal City).
Dave Freeman, nurse practitioner and physicians assistant, retired from Veterans Administration and Indian Health Service; Oshia Collins in front of a wall of medical records (Cal City).
Wanda Prica, LVN, defrosting a medicine refrigerator (Cal City); Briaunna Bolton entering data (Mojave).
The Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District's clinics in Tehachapi, California City and Mojave are modest, unassuming and absolutely vital to the rural population they serve. Some of the patients, newly signed up under subsidized insurance, have not had proper health care for years.
had proper health care for years. "There's a longer wait now," said Elizabeth Herrera, LVN, who manages the trio of clinics with quiet efficiency and a calm demeanor. "It's six weeks for an appointment. Before, it was two weeks."
The clinic buildings are compact.
"The biggest need is space," Herrera said. "We could see more patients if we had more room for another provider."
A new telemedicine system enables patients to consult with psychiatrists and receive counseling on diabetic, thyroid and other problems.
"There's a lot of depression and anxiety," she said, and rural patients are not accustomed to the new technology.
"It's like sticking your foot into a pool when it's cold."
The clinics, their walls lined with manila folders, need to switch from paper files to electronic medical records (EMR).
If Adventist Health assumes operation of the clinics following a positive vote on Measure H, EMR would be a priority.
"We have 34 rural health clinics in the Central Valley network," Adventist spokesperson Jimmy Phillips said. "We have EMR integrated in all facilities." The three TVHD clinics, he said, would be on the same EMR system.
"The number one thing is to get the clinics on the same electronic medical records as Tehachapi Hospital and San Joaquin Hospital," Phillips said.
