Since 1965, Kedren Health has been compassionately serving the South Los Angeles community. As a Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH), Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), and an Acute Psychiatric Hospital our mission is to: provide quality integrated health and behavioral health services to children, youth, adults, and families irrespective of immigration or residency status, language, culture, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or one’s ability to pay.
In response to COVID-19, Kedren Health rallied around this mission, and founded the Kedren Vaccines program. To date, the program has administered over 300,000 COVID-19 vaccines throughout the Greater Los Angeles Metropolitan Area as well as hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 tests. Served by a dedicated core of over 400 volunteers and employees who rolled up their sleeves to play their part in ending the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kedren has strived to create a unique medical experience. We want people to experience the “Kedren Way” where we treat people like people. Building an atmosphere that’s more akin to a weekend at Coachella than an exam room, Kedren has transformed the medical experience. We take pride in our ability to respect the dignity and worth of each individual: providing music, laughter, food, and when needed a shoulder to cry on. We’re working not only to cure the COVID-19 crisis but the mental health burden that COVID-19 has plagued our communities with, a weight disproportionately burdened by our black and brown communities of South LA.
Kedren Vaccines is a Center for Excellence and Exemplary Role Model for Equitable Vaccine Distribution. Removing every barrier between people and their vaccine: no appointment–that’s ok. No internet, no address, no ID, you can’t see, hear, talk, walk–no transportation–it didn’t matter, Kedren found a way to get you vaccinated. These directives led to national notoriety, culminating with the program director Dr. Jerry Abraham delivering testimony before the US Senate Health Committee on the subject of equitable vaccine distribution, as well as a gubernatorial visit by Gavin Newsom and Mayoral Visit by Eric Garcetti (in addition to countless other leaders and media coverage) .
At Kedren Vaccines, we engage, educate, vaccinate, and activate our patients. Engagement is about meeting people where they are: actively listening, hearing their reservations and concerns, and seeing how best we can serve their needs. Education requires active learning not only from the patient but also staff, requiring constant updates on the latest recommendations and best practices. Vaccination is getting a shot of life-saving essential medicine into the patients’ arms, and empowering patients by offering them their choice of vaccine. Activate–we encourage all of our patients to go out, get a friend, a neighbor, a cousin vaccinated, not be another passive participant but be actively engaged with the community. Kedren empowers you with the information to be an agent for change.
At Kedren, we’ve developed a mobile vaccination program to meet people where they live, work, worship, play, go to school and serving the homebound. Kedren has dubbed this the “Democratization of Health.” We’re striving to eliminate all barriers, all burdens, that needlessly stand in the way between people and their health.
We’re also working on life beyond COVID-19. We see these vaccines as a ‘gateway drug’ to Primary Care, Mental Health, and Preventive Services. Where are we going? We are building a comprehensive, integrated health ecosystem that blends and aligns individual and community health. Truly, we are creating whole person and whole community care. We’re committed to laying down and building up public health infrastructure and revolutionized healthcare delivery, so that the carnage and atrocities of this pandemic don’t occur again in our community.
Serving our community takes creativity and collaboration. Kedren is proud to have initiated partnerships with a myriad of community-based organizations as well as public-private partnerships for COVID-19 vaccinations. We would like to thank all our community and the 300,000+ individuals who rolled up their sleeve and took their shot and the over 400+ who rolled up both their sleeves and helped get our community vaccinated.
Building on this success, together we’re going to take care outside of the traditional four walls of hospitals and clinics and bring health to people where they are in public housing developments, factories, houses of worship, parks and community centers, and schools. The Future is Bright!
Dr. Jerry P Abraham is the director of Kedren Vaccines in South Los Angeles.
