History Page | Altamed
Celebrating 50 Years of Working to Build Healthier Communities
From the humblest of beginnings, we've worked with world-class health providers, community activists, and visionary leaders to create a community health network that truly represents those we serve.
Watch our staff, patients, and community partners share their moving and inspirational stories about how AltaMed has touched their lives.
A core group of Brown Berets launches the East LA Barrio Free Clinic. It relies entirely on grants and donations, briefly closing in December 1970 due to lack of funding.
Chicano college students and Brown Berets continue to lead anti-war demonstrations around the country. On August 29, police break up a march with more than 20,000 participants in East LA.
Twenty-four-year old Brown Beret Gloria Arellanes is on stage when a helicopter begins dropping canisters of tear gas on the march. Reporter Ruben Salazar is killed at the Silver Dollar Bar when the sheriff’s deputy throws a can of tear gas that hits him in the head. The incident is permanently captured in Frank Romero’s Death of Ruben Salazar (1986), and a silkscreen print is included in the AltaMed Art Collection.
Gloria Arellanes and other female Brown Berets leave the group. Arellanes organizes Las Adelitas de Aztlán and replaces the East LA Barrio Free Clinic with La Clinica Familiar del Barrio.
Cástulo de la Rocha joins La Clinica Familiar del Barrio for a three-month assignment. He is one of the clinic’s first paid employees.
Seeing a line outside the clinic, he sees an opportunity to fulfill a need for culturally inclusive, expert medical care in his neighborhood. Under the Urban Health Initiative, the clinic becomes a community health center, meaning it has at least 51% consumer representation on its board and can begin supporting itself with medical coverage from its patients.
La Clinica Familiar del Barrio opens its first Adult Day Health Care (ADHC) center in the basement of a church.
After a 17-year history, we open our second clinic in Pico Rivera, at Slauson Plaza.
A Multi-Purpose Senior Services Program (MSSP) is established with a $1 million grant – our largest grant to date.
We win a contract for a substance abuse treatment program, which includes funding for HIV services.
The BuenaCare Methadone and HIV Services program opens in Lincoln Heights, eventually relocating to Boyle Heights in 1993.
We receive funds from the Department of Health Services to launch our first HIV testing mobile unit. Between 1987 and 1991, new AIDS cases among Latinos reported in LA County rose by 9%.
We transition our ADHC center to a PACE demonstration site: Senior BuenaCare PACE, a managed care product serving Medicare and Medi-Cal-eligible seniors.
We acquire our first mobile health unit, serving the community with glucose, cholesterol, and blood pressure screenings, as well as providing health education and information.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) approves a request for AltaMed to become a permanent PACE organization on November 1.
We open a general pediatrics outpatient clinic at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
We establish primary care clinics at the Ramona Gardens, Estrada Courts, and William Mead housing developments, respectively in Lincoln Heights, East Los Angeles, and Chinatown.
We build a medical-dental presence in Orange County for the first time by merging with Community Care Health Centers.
We launch our Independent Practice Association (IPA), building a network of affiliated clinics across our service areas.
We purchase Universal Care, acquiring its employees and four additional sites in Orange County.
We receive a Primary Care Medical Home designation from the Joint Commission. Certification is about patient-centered care and focuses on educating patients on self-management.
Joint Commission certification encompasses care coordination, access to care, and how effectively a primary care clinician and interdisciplinary team work in partnership with the patient.
California cuts ADHC funding and replaces ADHC with Community-Based Adult Services.
To keep the remaining sites open, we convert ADHC centers in Downey, Lynwood, and El Monte into PACE.
This is the first time we challenged the Department of Health Care Services to approve three PACE sites in one application. The majority of ADHC staff are able to stay employed with us, and are placed within the MSSP, PACE, and our medical clinics.
In response to the 2010 passage of the Affordable Care Act and the 2013 launch of Covered California, we open two Health Insurance Resource Centers in Commerce and Santa Ana.
Employees provide Medi-Cal and Covered California enrollment guidance and we become Covered California’s top certified enrollment entity for several years in a row, earning a grant through the state’s Navigator Program.
We champion the historic Health for All Kids Act (SB4).
It passes, granting an estimated 170,000 undocumented children in California access to health care coverage under Medi-Cal.
As part of their successful advocacy efforts, AltaMed hosts events and engages community partners and elected officials. Most notably was then-State Senator Ricardo Lara, who initiated the $40 milllion allocation and additional $132 million each year to help make sure the children and families throughout California are covered.
We effectively eliminate disparities in the areas of breast cancer screening, adolescent immunizations, and A1c and retinal screenings
among those patients who are commercially insured, uninsured, and insured by Medi-Cal or Medicare.
We launch Building Bridges: Chicano/Mexican Art from Los Angeles to Mexico City, the first leg of what will be a traveling exhibit of Chicano and Mexican art from the AltaMed Art Collection.
The exhibit launches at the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil in Mexico City, and serves as a spinoff of 2017 exhibit Before the 45th: Action/Reaction in Chicano and Latino Art, hosted at the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington, D.C.
We renew our focus on civic engagement, supporting local voter registration and participation, providing community workshops on citizenship, and facilitating dialogue around public policy.
It is a privilege to celebrate our first 50 years. As we look ahead to the next 50, we honor those who have carried us forward, given us purpose, and remain beside us. I thank you for joining us on this journey and helping us make a difference.
- Cástulo de la Rocha, President and CEO