Printer Friendly

La Clinica Del Pueblo
2831 15th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20009-4607

www.lcdp.org

Site Description
La Clinica del Pueblo is a community health clinic in Ward 1 in Washington, DC, which began in 1983 as a Coalition of Central and North Americans seeking to improve the quality of health care among Latino residents. It started as a one room free clinic for the Latino population and now has developed into a multi-story, comprehensive health center that continues to offer services to uninsured children and adults.

The current facility, located in Mount Pleasant, Washington DC, provides comprehensive primary care; adult and pediatric, vaccination programs, women's health services, a diabetes clinic, comprehensive AIDS programs from prevention to treatment to case management, nutrition counseling, a 24 hour medical call and full service laboratory, community- based outreach, counseling, mental health services, complementary medical services, and patient advocacy. There are presently over 30 staff members and 100 volunteers, which consist of doctors, physician assistants, medical residents, chiropractors, nurse practitioners, nurses, psychologists, social workers, medical assistants, laboratory technicians, health workers, medial records personnel, health educators, office workers, and volunteers.

Over 97% of the population served is Latino, with 86% being recent immigrants from Central or South America and 55% originally from El Salvador. The majority speaks little English; many are illiterate in Spanish and in English, with over 90% being most comfortable communicating with their provider in Spanish. Up to 90% have no health insurance and 95% have incomes below the federal poverty level. La Clinica was and remains the only bilingual, bicultural medical clinic that provides entirely free care to Latinos in the greater Washington area, serving the uninsured and underinsured, La Clinica Del Pueblo serves over 5,500 patients with over 31,000 patient visits per year.

Expectations of Team Members
Team members are expected to attend and actively participate in ISCOPES’ team meetings, functions, and program events, as well as be committed to the team’s projects and the team process. There are no additional site specific expectations. 

Anticipated Project(s)
The La Clinica team has been, for several years, focusing on the problem of the needs of patients with limited English proficiency. These patients are unaware of their rights to free interpreter services and providers are unaware of the requirement to provide it. We have developed "I Speak" cards, provider information, and a website with downloadable information.  We expect to continue trying to address the different aspects of this problem for the immigrant community and medical providers in the Metro, DC area. Also, the Joint Commission has adopted some of the federal guidelines for accreditation and we would like to explore their materials and find out the experience of organizations trying to comply.

Past Projects
The ISCOPES La Clinica team has developed "I Speak" cards in a number of languages, developed a website for both providers and patients, given information sessions to providers and brown bag sessions for GW health professions students, spoken with patients in clinics, health fairs, and on street corners.  We've created a PSA (Public Service Announcement in the form of a TV Commercial) and presented at regional and national conferences.

Additional Information (coming soon)

• La Clinica del Pueblo "I Speak" Team Project: 2004-2005
• La Clinica Executive Summary 2003-2004
• La Clinica Executive Summary 2002, Power Point presentation
• La Clinica Executive Summary Mental Health 2000-2001
• La Clinica Executive Summary Mental Health 1999-2000