Program Coordinator at AccessOC Southern California - Santa Ana, California, United States
Of the 3,090,132 people living in Orange County, 21.3% are medically uninsured. For the uninsured, the "safety net" programs – those designed specifically to serve the under-insured —are critical in times of need. In 2005, AccessOC was founded to address the specialty care needs of this population within Orange County. Without treatment in the early stages of sickness, many of our patients would end up finding treatment in hospital emergency rooms, with no way of paying the bill. Our flagship program is the Outpatient Surgery Program which mobilizes medical volunteers to provide free low-risk, outpatient surgery to low-income, uninsured patients. The majority of these surgeries take place on our "Surgery Saturdays" when several volunteer medical and administrative staff come together to help several patients in one day. Alternatively, many of our patients are treated by being integrated into a doctor's regular patient schedule. Five hospitals participate, including Hoag Memorial, Kaiser Permanente, Mission Hospital, St. Joseph Hospital of Orange, and St. Jude Medical Center; more than 500 physicians, nurses and other staff have volunteered for the program. Additionally, we work with several eye care surgery centers, including Harvard Eye and NVision. The estimated value of donated services has surpassed $5 million dollars, and we have provided over 400 free surgical services that have allowed our patients to return to healthy and productive lives.