Clínica Esperanza/Hope Clinic (CEHC) is a 501c3 free clinic that is able to keep costs low through use of volunteers for the provision of health care, administrative and executive activities. In addition to having been involved in founding the clinic, the volunteer medical providers, including the Medical Director, have been providing free care as a cohesive group working in the Providence community for five years or more. This collective experience has had a profound impact on satisfaction with the CEHC volunteer experience: CEHC volunteers are proud of the excellent health care experiences provided to patients and look forward to their volunteer shifts each week. The current group of 20 highly qualified and experienced volunteer providers and administrative staff are supported by two part time employees (an R.N. and a clinic coordinator/administrator).

The CEHC model of care is to provide an integrated “medical home” for the uninsured patient. Our patients are assigned one physician and a translator (if required) and a patient advocate or Navegante – who see them at each visit. The Navegantes (Health care Navigators) are an essential member of the clinic team – providing assistance with patient access programs and accompanying the patients to medical referrals where required.

CEHC aims to be a beacon of hope, a place where bright new ideas about improving access to healthcare are welcome. Through volunteer and community involvement, we truly aspire to be a “place to be healthy” for patients and volunteers.

Volunteer Health Care Professionals

The Clinic has a group of 32  health care professionals, including nurses, nurse practitioners, physicians, pharmacists, and medical/nursing students. Since our clinic will be entirely run by volunteers, we are always seeking more people who are committed to delivering health care to those who need it most. We prefer that volunteers make a minimum commitment of one three hour shift per month; details and schedules will be available through the volunteer coordinator. For more information, please email info@aplacetobehealthy.org.

Non-Medical and Student Volunteers

The Clinic is also seeking non-medical undergraduate, graduate-student and non-student volunteers. A number of clinic evaluation programs are ongoing, and non-medical volunteers are always needed to help us assess how well we are delivering on our heatlh care objectives. Some examples include -making sure that our patients vaccinations are up-to-date, and making sure that our providers are following American Diabetes Association guidelines when providing care to our Diabetics.

Non-medical volunteers can help greet patients, assist with patient forms, call patients to remind them about their appointments, and help with medical translation (following some in-service training). For more information, please email info@aplacetobehealthy.org.

Responsibilities will include but are not limited to the following:

• Support the delivery of four free primary screening clinics run by the board and medical volunteers
• Update website and marketing material
• Support CEHC staff and BoD with as-need projects such as fundraising, researching malpractice insurance, finding out about other free health care models, and other tasks related to the start-up of a non-profit health services organization.

Qualifications

• Familiarity with and/or interest in health care access issues and health disparities
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Self-starter with ability to work independently and as a team
• Must be very comfortable with Microsoft Office suite and web-based research
• Bilingual preferred (English/Spanish)
• We expect a minimum commitment of 5 hours a week, for a minimum of 10 weeks.

For more information on volunteering, please write info@aplacetobehealthy.org

We will send you some information sheets and a sign up sheet to fill out. Please be patient! We’re volunteers too! Some volunteers who work with us are listed here.