Expansion of LifeLong’s West Berkeley Family Practice Underway

Major donors to LifeLong Medical Care’s Capital Campaign to renovate the LifeLong West Berkeley Health Center gathered on Sunday, January 27th for a tour of the work in progress of the new three story building under construction.

During construction patients are still receiving LifeLong’s high quality health care and additional services on site.

When the building is completed:

• Each of the three floors will offer a full family practice, seeing patients of all ages. Patients will experience the grandeur of the historic building, and then transition into a state-of-the-art health center filled with light airy spaces.
• The doctors, nurses, social workers and case managers will be centrally located on each floor. This way they can easily “huddle” throughout the day to coordinate their work to best meet the needs of the patients they will be seeing. Since many patients have complicated health care challenges, this integrated approach will provide opportunities for even more effective health care.
• LifeLong West Berkeley Health Center will have several large rooms for groups that give patients the opportunity to learn from each other.  These groups will use our new teaching kitchen, with hands-on lessons on how to cook fresh, healthy food that meets their cultural and dietary needs. All of our patients, whether they are pregnant or parenting, dealing with diabetes or hypertension, or just trying to stay healthy, will benefit from group care.
• With a new dispensary, prescriptions can be filled before our patients leave.
• Like LifeLong’s Over 60 Health Center there will be wonderful art on the walls, organized by a stellar group of volunteers. Another group is working on a visual tribute to Dr. Henrik Blum, LifeLong’s former board chair, whose pioneering ideas on health care are now widely accepted as ideal and fundamental to public health care practices.
• We’ll have a total of 27 exam rooms – 13 more than the site currently has. We’ll be able to provide patients with medical, mental health and social services, often during a single visit. We’ll have plenty of space for our dedicated staff to work.

The building renovations will be complete open in late 2013, so we’ll be ready to serve our current patients, and to welcome other residents of our community who will become newly insured under Health Care Reform. Thanks to generous support, there is only an additional $98,031 to raise to reach the goal of $2.1 million.