Last month we announced that Dr. Ana Valdes, Medical Director of St. Anthony’s Clinic, was a finalist for a Healthcare Hero Award. It’s high time to announce that she won.

The San Francisco Business Times launched the new awards to honor professionals who go above and beyond to make the Bay Area healthier by delivering quality care, advocating for patients, innovating new technology or educating the community about health issues.

Dr. Ana was recognized for increasing healthcare access to the underserved. Interestingly enough, one of her achievements that most interested her healthcare peers was synchronizing St. Anthony’s electronic medical records with the coding system at San Francisco General Hospital. This made St. Anthony’s the city’s first low-income clinic to do so. It sounds technical, but coordinating with SF General means that all the doctors who serve a low-income patient have the same information. A more complete history means better care and more possibility for progress.

The magazine also cited the brand new breast health program Dr. Ana has started in the Clinic, based on an outreach model she created for diabetes patients and later for asthma patients. All three programs help patients who have a hard time keeping up with their healthcare come into the Clinic, check on progress, and make a plan for managing disease. (more…)

Dr. Ana Valdés, Director of St. Anthony Free Medical Clinic, is profiled in this month’s 7×7 Magazine.

Pick up a copy at your nearest bookstore or download a pdf of the article now!

Historic nonprofit offers help to SF neighborhood with highest citywide rate of diabetes hospitalizations

SAN FRANCISCO, CA November 19, 2008 On World Diabetes Day, St. Anthony Free Medical Clinic will be offering free blood sugar check ups, as well as diabetic foot and eye exams, medication review, tips on holiday diabetes control and free massages to San Francisco’s poor and homeless. St. Anthony’s effort to address the staggering rate of diabetes in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district comes at a time when nearly 24 million Americans, 8 percent of the population, are reported to have Type II diabetes. Diabetes can also lead to kidney failure, blindness and heart disease.

Diabetes in the Tenderloin

The Tenderloin district has the highest citywide rate of ambulatory hospitalizations due to diabetes, according to a 2007 Building a Healthier San Francisco’s Community Health Assessment, as well as the city’s highest concentration of people living below the poverty line. The prevalence of Type II diabetes is highest among adults from low-income households.

 “Tenderloin residents lack adequate access to nutritious food and safe spaces for exercise, which dramatically impacts two of the leading factors in diabetes management- diet and exercise.” noted St. Anthony Free Medical Clinic Director, Dr. Ana Valdés.  “We try to address those factors through education, active medical care, and diabetes management techniques.”

St. Anthony Free Medical Clinic

Established in 1956, the St. Anthony Free Medical Clinic is the first Free Medical Clinic in the United States. The new clinic, located in St. Anthony’s new LEED certified service center, will open in January of 2009. It will provide over 12,000 patient visits annually, of which approximately 25% will be pediatric visits.

St.  Anthony Free Medical Clinic is one of the many free, life-sustaining programs and services of St. Anthony Foundation that helps to heal individuals and families. St. Anthony Foundation is not funded by federal, state, or local government money, and is entirely supported by private donations.