Solar panels keep Los Angeles County clinic open during black out after last week's windstorm
December 9, 2011
On the evening of Wednesday, December 1st, over 100 mph winds swept across Los Angeles County knocking down trees and power lines and causing over $20 million in damages and clean-up costs. By Thursday morning over 335,000 customers were without power, including two of Asian Pacific Health Care Venture, Inc.’s (APHCV’s) clinics, but while other clinics without power across Los Angeles County were closed for business, APHCV was seeing patients thanks to a 58.1 kW solar photovoltaic system installed on the roof of the APHCV-Los Feliz Health Center.
In 2006, APHCV installed the 332 Shell Solar panel units as part of its environmental awareness and energy savings plan to help reduce utility costs at its largest community health center. Generating 52,555 watts, the solar panels produce approximately 25% of the APHCV-Los Feliz Health Center’s daily electricity usage and provide a savings of approximately $20,000, annually.
The 26 hour power outage at the APHCV-Los Feliz Health Center was the first time that the solar panels were put to use as the sole means of providing electricity to the building. As the early morning unfolded, the solar panels began to charge and patients weathered the traffic due to out of service traffic lights and blocked streets due to fallen trees to make their medical appointment. Knowing that the solar panels could not sustain full clinic operations, APHCV made the commitment that the APHCV-Los Feliz Health Center would remain open with a limited capacity for as long as it was safe to provide medical care. The electricity from the solar panels was routed to designated areas to maximize its usage. The waiting room was converted into a make shift reception area and clinic front desk staff hooked up laptops and helped patients check in and complete paperwork before their appointment. Patients with appointments for that day were called and informed of the situation and asked to reschedule if it was convenient for them. Those that came in to the clinic were informed of the limited scope of services APHCV was able to provide, but were told that if they still wished, a provider would see them or else they were free to reschedule. Spirits were high as staff strolled the dimly lit hallways and doctors helped fill prescriptions and saw sick patients. The APHCV-Los Feliz Health Center was able to see 57 patients before staff decided to close clinic at 4:00 pm before the sun went down and the solar power was expended.
With the advent of Health Care Reform and the direction of the Department of Health and Human Services to have medical providers move towards increased usage of health information technologies such as electronic health records (EHR), one forgets the importance of electricity to perform everyday tasks such as pulling up a medical record and refilling a prescription to effectively care for a patient. Last week’s power outage across Los Angeles County was a reminder of the measures service providers need to take to ensure that clinics have the proper emergency systems in place to maintain access to care for patients in need.
APHCV’s solar panel installation project was generously funded by a rebate from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the Gas Company, as well as, grants received from the Ahmanson Foundation, Kaiser Permanente, Weingart Foundation, the office of Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and The California Endowment.
Asian Pacific Health Care Venture, Inc. (www.aphcv.org) is a nonprofit federally-qualified health center that provides culturally competent health education and primary care services to over 12,000 patients annually, more than 77% of whom are uninsured. APHCV provides over 46,400 medical and mental health visits each year in multiple Asian languages (Bengali, Cantonese, Hindi, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Indonesian, Mandarin, Tagalog, Thai, Urdu, and Vietnamese), English and Spanish. APHCV operates three community health center sites: the Los Feliz Health Center, Belmont Health Services and John Marshall High School Health Center (for JMHS students). APHCV can be reached at (323) 644-3880. Medical appointments for the Los Feliz Health Center can be made by calling (323) 644-3888 and to the Belmont Health Services at (323) 644-3885.