Mayor Woods Cuts the Ribbon at the Opening of Center for Health Promotion & Ravenswood Family Dentistry

On April 29th Mayor David Woods cut the ribbon, formally opening Ravenswood Family Health Center's new Center for Health Promotion and the Ravenswood Family Dentistry. The two facilities, located across from Ravenswood's main clinic on Bay Road in East Palo Alto, are next door to each other and share a common reception area. Community residents who attended the opening celebration were amazed to see that what looks ordinary from the outside is extraordinary within, beautifully designed and state-of-the art.

Center for Health Promotion

One of Ravenswood's board members, Gordon Russell, who came up with the idea of building a Center for Health Promotion to accommodate RFHC's expanding services, committed a major gift for its construction. And, thanks to President Barak Obama and our Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, additional funding was provided through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

The Center has room for the entire Ravenswood Health Education team, including a classroom and space for retinopathy screening for diabetic patients. Another section of the Center accommodates insurance enrollment specialists who meet with uninsured people who want to find out if they are eligible for public health coverage. Also, thanks to Stanford Hospital & Clinics, the Center also opened branch number five of the Stanford Health Library. With the assistance of a bilingual medical librarian, any one in the community who wants to find out about some health issue is welcome to come. The health library opens May 10th, with hours Monday-Friday 9am to Noon; 1pm to 5pm.

A visitor using the new Health Library

Next to the Center is the Ravenswood Family Dentistry. This state-of-the art dental clinic has 10 dental chairs including 4 pediatric chairs, a surgery unit, and the most advanced digital dental technology.

There is an overwhelming need for accessible, low-cost dental care. Dentists accepting low-income patients are few and many children and adults go without dental care unless there is an acute dental problem. Ravenswood's CEO Luisa Buada says, "Dental disease is the most common health problem we see among children and adults and untreated it can have real health risks. Ignoring the need has never been an option. We've known from the day we opened RFHC in 2001 that we had to find a way to address dental health problems." Ravenswood stepped up to the challenge of building the dental clinic, receiving a significant grant from David and Lucile Packard Foundation and other funders.

RFHC's Dental Director Jack Luomanen, DMD who has set up many community dentistry clinics over the past 30 years, is incorporating best practices for early detection and prevention into RFHC's dental program including a method designed at UCSF to detect bacterial condition in the month in young children under the age of three, treat it and thereby reduce/prevent future caries. "One of our main goals," says Dr. Luomanen "is to prevent children from ever getting caries by applying fluoride varnish and educating parents about their role in protecting their children's teeth."

Given limited staffing, Ravenswood Family Dentistry can only accept established RFHC medical patients, that is, those who have received medical care at RFHC in the past 24 months. It expects to see 1,800 patients in year one, expanding to 3,000 patients in year two. At full capacity, the 10-operatory clinic will be able to see 6,000 to 8,000 unique patients annually.

To expand capacity, RFHC is exploring a partnership with the University of Pacific School of Dentistry to become a site for the National Dental Pipeline Program, offering community externships to dental students. "At school, they will be learning the latest techniques in dentistry and we will have the technology and staff to give them more clinical experience here in the community," says Dr. Luomanen. RFHC is also exploring a partnership with the Foothill Colleges Dental Hygienist and Dental Assistant Program to provide externships and is working through the Mid-Peninsula Dental Society and the Santa Clara and San Mateo County chapters of the California Dental Hygiene Association to recruit dental professionals as volunteers to increase access for more patients.

For more information contact: Kathleen Alexander, Director, Communications & Marketing, kalexander@ravenswoodfhc.org

RFHC Annual Report 2008 »

RFHC Annual Report 2008

We would like to share our Annual Report with you. Our thanks to the Taproot volunteers that created it. Click here to download