Social Emergency Medicine
Our program is strongly committed to bringing awareness and addressing the social determinants of health that affect our patients’ health and overall quality of life. Many of our patients constitute vulnerable and marginalized populations, often underserved and disproportionately impacted by the health disparities and health inequities that exist in our country.
Here is a list of projects initiated by faculty and residents at Harbor-UCLA that focus on diversity, health disparities, health inequity, and social emergency medicine.
- Hospital-Based Violence Intervention Program
- Trauma Recovery Center
- Substance Abuse Treatment/MAT services/X-Waiver Efforts
- Whole Person Care Substance Use Disorder Treatment
- Immigration/Safe Spaces
- Asylum Clinic at Harbor
- Immigration/Asylum Work in Tijuana
- Screening for Social Needs (Chatbot) + Peds ED Screening for Social Needs
- Homeless Health/Street Medicine Elective
- Safe Park LA
- Food Pharmacy/Food Prescribing
- IDHEAL Teaching Modules
- Social Determinants of Health Curriculum for Sub-Is
- Poverty Simulation at Orientation
- One Degree Resource Connection
- Hospital-Wide Social Determinants Committee
- Language Access
International and Domestic Health Equity (IDHEAL)
This is a UCLA-system-wide collaboration that focuses on how academic Emergency Medicine can play a role in the “promotion of health equity and the elimination of health disparities, locally, nationally, and globally.”
Refugee Health Alliance Volunteer Opportunity
We are proud to partner with the Refugee Health Alliance (RHA) to provide healthcare to asylum seekers and other vulnerable populations in Tijuana, Mexico. RHA is a nonprofit created to provide medical care to the many refugees from Central American countries who are escaping violence and poverty. Several of our residents and those from other departments at Harbor-UCLA regularly volunteer in Tijuana under the guidance of our alumna, Dr. Hannah Janeway, to provide medical care at several refugee shelters throughout the city.
Violence Intervention Program & Trauma Recovery Center
In June 2019, Harbor-UCLA received a nearlytwo-million-dollar grant to establish the Violence Intervention Program and Trauma Recovery Center. This grant was given to assist in the development of a multi-agency collaboration institution involving the DHS system, sheriffs, Dept. of Mental Health, Dept. of Public Heath, Substance Abuse & Control Center, Whole Person Care of Los Angeles, SoCal Crossroads, Journey Out, Rainbow Services, Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Human Trafficking, and National Alliance of Mental Illness.
All TTA level 1s& 2s will have an automatic page to this program which will alert an on-site social worker. We then connect the patient to a network of services focused on affecting the social circumstances that lead to the initial trauma, preventing further injury, and managing the complex medical and social recovery following the hospital stay.
Food Pharmacy
Started in early 2020, the Food Pharmacy is a joint initiative between the Emergency Medicine and Family Medicine departments. We are proud to work with our colleagues to bring fresh produce to our community. The Food Pharmacy partners with several organizations including Food Forward and the American Heart Association to provide farm-fresh fruits and vegetables to our patients and their families. Every Wednesday, from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm, we distribute thousands of pounds of fresh produce to people on a first-come, first-served basis.
We are grateful to provide “prescriptions” for this food as a means of advertising these goodies, but the food is available to all who come, prescription or not. We recognize that many of our patients do not have access to fresh and healthy produce as a result of living in urban food deserts, having limited income, and insufficient understanding of nutrition. We hope that by encouraging our patients to access this produce, we can extend our ability to improve peoples’ health beyond the walls of our hospital.
Get More Information
For more information about the projects mentioned above or Social Emergency Medicine at Harbor-UCLA, please contact:
Dr. Natasha Thomas at [email protected]
Support Us
There are three ways to make a tax-deductible donation to the Emergency Medicine Residents’ Educational Fund at Harbor through our very own 501c3!
1) Shop on Amazon.com
- Visit smile.amazon.com.
- Enter “Harbor Emergency Medical Education Foundation” in the “Pick your own charitable organization” box.
- Shop like you normally would and Amazon will donate 0.5% of everything you purchase to the Resident Education Fund.
- Keep in mind that you need to use the above URL each visit instead of www.amazon.com for the donation. It functions exactly like Amazon’s regular website.
2) Use this to access the PayPal donation page where you may use a credit card or PayPal account to donate.
3) You may send a check directly to:
Dr. Madonna Fernandez-Frackelton
1000 West Carson Street
Box 21
Torrance, CA 90509.
Please make the check out to Harbor Emergency Medical Education Fund (HEMEF).
We thank you immensely for your support!