Sequoia Health Equity Partnership

The mission of Dignity Health Sequoia Hospital has evolved during its seven-decade history and our work now extends well beyond our hospital’s walls. A key part of today’s mission is supporting the health of our communities in meaningful and measurable ways. This requires thinking beyond the historic model of treating our patients while they are at the hospital and instead working to address their needs both before and after their interactions with us.

Aligning with the hospital in this critical work, the Sequoia Hospital Foundation established the Sequoia Health Equity Partnership, a donor-supported fund with the goal of addressing the health of those most vulnerable in our community. Proper health management shouldn’t depend on our zip code, economic status, or the color of our skin. Together, we know we can create a more equitable health system that improves physical, social and mental health for everyone.

Addressing these important issues requires that we take action in several ways. The Foundation’s fund seeks to address two unique needs. 

• First, in partnership with Samaritan House, a leading non-profit serving San Mateo County, the Foundation provides the funding necessary to bring a diabetes nurse educator to their Redwood City clinic to work directly with at-risk patients to provide the necessary tools and education regarding critical lifestyle modifications (meal planning, activity/exercise and stress management) so they can live with diabetes successfully.
• Second, working closely with the hospital’s care coordination team, the Foundation helps to fund the resources necessary for a “safe discharge” program to meet the needs of our vulnerable patients after their care at the hospital. Patients in need of assistance are most often identified during daily multidisciplinary rounds in which staff members discuss the care and discharge plans for both inpatient and outpatient individuals. During the review, it may become apparent that a patient requires skilled nursing, supervised in-home care, rehab services, counseling, medication, equipment or transportation, and they lack the resources to pay for these services. The Foundation’s Sequoia Health Equity Partnership fund will help to meet these expenses as part of the hospital’s safe discharge program, alleviating unnecessary financial stress during the healing and recovery process and improving patient care.

Together these two programs expand our coverage and the spectrum of care before, during and after hospitalization.

The Sequoia Hospital Foundation has a long and successful history of helping to make pioneering programs and equipment possible within our hospital. Now, however, we must expand our vision. It is Sequoia Hospital’s mission, and our shared individual responsibility, to provide compassionate and equitable health care to all those in our community. 

Support for partnerships similar to this can only succeed with your participation. Donate today.