In L.A., Community Health Workers Are Part Of The Medical Team

Month after month, Natalia Pedroza showed up at the doctor’s office with uncontrolled diabetes and high blood pressure. Her medications never seemed to work, and she kept returning to the emergency room in crisis.

Walfred Lopez, a Los Angeles County community health worker, was determined to figure out why.

Lopez spoke to her in her native Spanish and, little by little, gained her trust. Pedroza, a street vendor living in downtown Los Angeles, shared with him that she was depressed. She didn’t have immigration papers, she told him, and her children still lived in Mexico.

Then she mentioned something she hadn’t told her doctors: She was nearly blind.

Pedroza’s doctor, Janina Morrison, was stunned. For years, Morrison said, “people have been changing her medications and changing her insulin doses, not really realizing that she can’t read the bottles.”

Health officials across the country face a vexing quandary – how do you help the sickest and neediest patients get healthier and prevent their costly visits to emergency rooms? Los Angeles County is testing whether community health workers like Lopez may be one part of the answer.

Lopez is among 25 workers employed by the county to do everything possible to remove obstacles standing in the way of patients’ health. That may mean coaching them about their diseases, ensuring they take their medications or scheduling medical appointments. Their help can extend beyond the clinic walls, too, to such things as finding housing or getting food stamps.