L.A. Care's Regional Community Advisory Committees: An evolving model for consumer engagement in a public health plan

L.A. Care Health Plan, a non-profit, community accountable, Medi-Cal health plan in Los Angeles County is a leader in providing culturally and linguistically competent, quality health care services. L.A. Care's recipe for success includes a proactive grassroots engagement process.

With approximately 400 consumer, advocate, and provider members, L.A. Care's Regional Community Advisory Committee (RCAC) system continually strives to align closely with the ethnic, cultural and social dynamics of its constituents.

Although the RCAC system showed modest success, the need for an evaluation and redesign surfaced. A new approach was needed to insure that participants receive information on health topics, access to care, and opportunities to build advocacy experience that is meaningful and practical to both RCAC members and L.A. Care.

The redesigned RCAC system shows improvement in grassroots participation, policy making, and programmatic direction. Moving from a good system to a great one required a robust and candid evaluation of existing operations. Key changes include additional staff training, wider involvement of the advocate community, and increased funding support. While enhanced communication tools- newsletters, toll-free telephone hotline –compliment bi-monthly meetings. Health Promoters/Promotores; use a peer-to-peer health education approach to assist with “Access to Care” throughout the RCAC's. Stipends and reimbursements reduce the financial burden of participation. Finally within L.A. Care efforts to leverage resources across departments (e.g., health education, government affairs, cultural and linguistics services) increase the RCAC system's potential.

L.A. Care's approach offers the health care field a cutting edge model for authentic consumer engagement.