Southern Indian Health Council (SIHC)

FY22-23: For the first seven months, like the rest of the country, we were still dealing with COVID. Many of our programs were online via Zoom, meetings with staff was on Teams, and we were following the strict precautions when working with the community in-person. To help with outreach and better communication with the community, SIHC started a podcast call It's Wellness Time. This podcast focuses on SIHC departments, services, and providers to share new programs, upcoming events, and useful resources for health and wellness. SIHC had a grand re-opening of our Kumeyaay Wellness Center in November 2022 to emphasize the expanding program for recovery services related to most substances abuse to include the sweat lodge, group/individual support, therapy, and harm reduction. Narcan vending machines and trainings are available to the community with confirmed 15 opioid overdose reversals in the community in 2023. Behavioral Health transitioned from paper charting to electronic charting using the Electronic Health Record (EHR) to support the increase of clients and electronic billing. Human Resources reported an increase of staff with 14 new positions added to SIHC that supports the increase of patient and client services from all departments. With an increase of cybersecurity, the Information Technologies implementing numerous authentications, campaigns, and protections from vulnerable external sources. Anticipating a need for future expansion of our health center (construction), SIHC hired a Development Manger to focus on fundraising to support a capital campaign. Increasing our reach to the community, QR codes were added to our flyers, newsletters, resource booklet, and website.