What Happened?
Hayward, California, is building a new fire station with a built-in health clinic to serve residents’ emergency needs while making better use of available resources and space. The new clinic will increase access to preventative healthcare services for low-income residents who might otherwise opt for a costly visit to the emergency room.
Goal
The Hayward health clinic will be built adjacent to a new fire station embedded in a community with a high percentage of uninsured, low-income residents. Within the first two years of operation, the Alameda County Health Care Services Agency anticipates the health clinic will service 5,000 new patients. According to the San Jose Mercury News, The firehouse clinic will be open longer hours to accommodate more residents’ work schedules, and guarantee appointments within 72 hours.
Because fire stations have an EMT on-site and provide emergency services to the community, it is a natural choice to partner one with a health clinic. Furthermore, many fire stations are underused facilities with available space and resources cities can leverage to increase access to preventative healthcare services.
The Design
A San Francisco architecture firm took on the Hayward firehouse clinic project pro bono to raise awareness of opportunities to add health clinics onto new or existing fire station infrastructure. Six different California healthcare and emergency organizations collaborated with the architecture firm to outline design guidelines other cities can use when creating a firehouse clinic. Some recommended guidelines include:
- Making the clinic visibly accessible from the street
- Creating an entryway separate from the fire station
- Allowing natural light and views of nature for those being serviced in the clinics
- Programming indoor and outdoor waiting areas with children play areas and access to free Wi-Fi
- Installing green roofs and plenty of foliage to reduce energy costs
- Building an indoor reception area with library full of informative literature
The guidelines emphasize keeping the fire station and clinic separate in many ways, while still creating a symbiotic relationship for increased efficiency.
Total Convert
Seattle is considering a proposal to repurpose a recently decommissioned fire station into a holistic clinic. By turning the Historic Seattle Fire Station #6 into a community health clinic, low-income residents would have access to low-to-no-cost health services. Similar to Hayward’s clinic, the Seattle clinic would focus on preventative care services such as:
- Hyperbaric therapy
- Acupuncture
- Health education
- Massage
- Chelation
The services would be non-invasive and encourage reduced healthcare costs in the long term.
New York Fire Houses
In New York City, several fire houses have been repurposed into other valuable pieces of community infrastructure including:
- Downtown community television center
- Residential units
- Art studios
- New York City Fire Museum
- Commercial and industrial space
- Food and recreation space
Because many of the fire stations are still standing after more than 100 years the city prefers to preserve the buildings while finding them new purposes rather than tearing them down.
Evolving Roles
Gov1 has reported on many instances of public departments taking on new roles in the community, often leveraging federal funding to complete the transitions.