♪♪
-We are about to open the doors.
Are we good? Here we go.
-The Seattle/King County Clinic is coming soon,
and thousands of people are expected to take part.
-Dental, very expensive.
-For the medical.
-Many need medical care, but dental and vision
are also covered, and all services are free.
-So, here's one.
-You can have a job, you can have insurance,
you can have neither of those things.
And when you're in here, everybody treats you like
you're a person.
-Volunteers. -Volunteers, super.
-None of this would be possible
without an army of volunteers.
It's not too late to sign up.
-Without volunteers, we couldn't operate.
-These stories and more next on "CityStream."
♪♪
Hi, I'm Tatevik Aprikyan, and welcome to
a special edition of "CityStream."
Soon, thousands of people will converge on Seattle Center
to get free medical, dental and vision care.
It's all a part of Seattle/King County Clinic,
a four-day event that runs from February 15th to the 18th.
♪♪
This entire episode of "CityStream"
will explore different aspects of this clinic.
Services include dental fillings and extractions,
eye exams and prescription glasses.
Also mammograms, X-rays,
immunizations, ultrasounds and much more.
Some of it will happen here at McCaw Hall,
and all services are free.
Plus, the clinic is open
to everyone regardless of insurance,
income or immigration status.
Producer Randy Eng has a preview.
♪♪
-It is 4:25 A.M. [ Laughs ]
-Greetings. Welcome.
-Thank you. -We're glad you're here.
Okay, we're about to start handing out tickets,
so please get in your seats.
-Dental very expensive, and did it last year.
Didn't finish everything, so it's free here.
-Uh, for the medical.
-Free dental is my number one reason.
Even with insurance. Dental is very expensive,
and I have a tooth that might need to be pulled or extracted.
And so this will get it taken care of.
-Even though I need vision, I'm just going to wait to see
how much it is with my Medicare. -Good morning.
-We have a 5 A.M. check-in time
for the first shifts of volunteers that include
both general support and a lot of nurses,
and it's really about getting the first part
of the process staffed.
So down there, patient intake nurses
will start getting trained.
Up here at patient registration,
they'll start training them on the patient
registration system.
-Once you turn on your computer, this is what you'll see.
-The interpreters will be here
and they'll start getting trained on their process
to prepare for us to open doors at 6:30.
-Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to open the doors.
Are we good? Here we go.
♪♪
-[ Speaking in Spanish ]
-Three, four. -Four.
-We've handed out 432 of the 550 dental tickets
that we have allocated for today.
We've handed out 233 of the 300 vision tickets
we've allocated for today, and 43 of the medical only tickets.
So we're in good shape at 7:09 A.M.
So 30 minutes after having started admitting people.
-Everything is here and it's for anybody.
You can have a job, you can have insurance,
you can have neither of those things.
And when you're in here, everybody treats you
like you're a person.
-Welcome. We're glad you're here.
-This clinic is unique from a national standpoint,
both in its scale and accessibility.
This is what it looked like in 2014,
the first year of this massive community effort.
And in the 10 years since,
the clinic has saved 27,000 patients
more than $23 million in out of pocket costs
that would have been unaffordable to them.
That's a lot of people taking advantage of this free clinic,
and it might surprise you to see who's coming here for help.
In 2023, patients shared that 96% of them were housed,
34% were unemployed,
60% said their number one reason for attending
was because they could not afford health care costs,
and 22% actually had insurance,
but still could not access the type of care they needed.
One example, those in desperate need of dental care.
It is the most requested service
at the Seattle/King County Clinic,
and people are willing to wait hours and hours to get help.
A lot of them are considered the missing middle.
Those are people who are increasingly left
out of our health care systems and safety nets.
Project executive and clinic founder Julia Colson
says these people make too much to qualify for assistance,
but not enough to afford the care they need.
So they come here looking for help at the clinic.
-I am self-employed.
I have health insurance,
but it's sort of the minimum mandated health insurance,
and there's no dental on it.
-Some of the dental services
provided at the clinic include cleanings,
fillings, root canals and extractions,
all of it free to the patient.
-Over to nine.
-Same as dental,
many insured people cannot afford vision care,
but this clinic can help.
Plus, tracking the staggering number of supplies
is a full-time job.
These stories next on "CityStream."
♪♪
-It's no one's fault. It's the system's failure.
And these folks just happen to be
in the middle of that at that moment,
which really any of us could be in at any time.
-Welcome back to this special edition of "CityStream"
from McCaw Hall.
Vision care is another important service
provided at the Seattle/King County Clinic,
and for hundreds of people in need of prescription glasses,
each one of them will get a custom pair of new glasses.
Producer Randy Eng and project executive Julia Colson
take you through the process.
-Just let me know which one looks better.
So here's one, here's two.
-Two.
-I think about the impact the ability to see
has on your life.
-Three, four. -Four.
-Having a pair of glasses that fit you appropriately,
that help to improve your vision
and that are a style that you feel confident in
helps you to present yourself and navigate the world
with a whole lot more confidence.
-That's a little better.
-This might be the only pair of glasses
that a patient gets for several years,
and so we want to make sure that it's going to last.
When we have the mobile labs,
they have limitations as to how many lenses they can carry
and we don't know what needs we're going to have.
And so in order to anticipate
every particular patient's needs,
you need thousands and thousands of pairs of blank lenses.
-These are custom to them.
It's their selection of what they like
or the colors they like, and it it's a prescription
that it wasn't somebody's old prescription
that we're trying to approximate to them.
This is absolutely what they need.
-The patients will come in.
After their exam, they come down into our area of optical.
They'll sit down with an optician,
discuss their prescription and their visual needs.
The optician will help them select the appropriate frame
for their prescription and their face and their style.
And then we'll write up the order.
It goes to another person who double checks
that everything is correct. -We'll just skip
it out if we don't have it. -Okay,
-I am very, very picky and passionate about
people getting the right eyeglasses
when they return to pick them up.
We have three different sets of eyeballs. Look at them.
We make sure that the names match and the frames match
what the patient is expecting to get when they return,
and then we log on the computer
and we place the order and transcribe
exactly what the doctor has written for their prescription.
The people don't get the glasses unless we're back here
doing this, you know, so we can
have all the medical people in the world come and volunteer.
But they would have to take time out
from actually seeing patients
to come back in here and do this.
So if we can cover that part,
then that frees up so many more hours for patient contact.
And then from there we will take the frame,
the actual frame the person tried on,
wrap it up in an order form and send it off to our optical lab.
♪♪
[ Machine whirring ]
♪♪
-We've been involved with the Seattle/King County Clinic
probably since it started.
We've been doing the glasses for them,
and it's been rather enjoyable.
It's nice to give back to the community.
The masters goes to Texas.
They crank all the bread and butter stuff out,
and then we get to do all the hard stuff
for the customized product,
where the prescriptions that people have problems with,
the prisms, all the fun stuff.
It's really important for them to get good vision.
So when they put our product on, their lives improve.
It's a product that can change lives for people
and that kind of drives us each day.
You've got to help other people,
and that just makes you a better person
and it makes us a better company.
♪♪
-About five weeks ago, we held the clinic
and about a thousand patients
had prescription eyeglasses ordered,
and they have since come back.
And so the patients over a period of two days
have an opportunity to come pick up their glasses
and then meet with opticians again
to have them fitted to make sure
that the prescription was done correctly.
Because if not, we can send them back to the lab
and have them fixed,
and then we will be mailing out eyeglasses
for anybody who didn't come retrieve them today.
This is the end of kind of the patient deliverable piece,
but then after that, I'll be working on the final report
to essentially kind of wrap up.
And based on our experiences, our minds are already churning
with how to make improvements going forward.
♪♪
-Seeing the world with clarity is a great comfort to anyone.
Clarity is also key to understanding the health
needs of people who don't speak English.
Last year, patients at the clinic
used 51 different languages.
The clinic has many interpreters,
some who recorded informational greetings
that put patients at ease from the start.
-Ready?
-[ Speaking foreign language ] -Hello?
-[ Speaking foreign language ] -[ Speaking foreign language ]
-Today we have had four
folks to do recordings in the top four languages --
English, Spanish, Vietnamese,
and actually we do Cantonese and Mandarin.
So I guess that would be five.
-[ Speaking foreign language ]
-This is the very first part
where we can kind of put them at ease
and give them some general instruction and direction
of what to expect.
-[ Speaking foreign language ]
-It's not always easy for people to approach you
with a question or to to ask what they need to ask.
-Please be back by 5:30 A.M. when we distribute tickets.
-[ Speaking foreign language ]
-This is one of those small details.
It really helps patients feel comfortable,
to feel a little more at ease in their surroundings.
-[ Speaking in Spanish ]
No, I'm not a pro, but really, I do
enjoy doing it.
And really, I just want to use my skills, my time, my hours,
everything that I can just to help this to be possible.
[ Speaking in Spanish ]
-Please remember to wear your mask.
-[ Speaking foreign language ]
-It is awesome listening to the different languages,
and we appreciate it so much okay.
-Okay, thank you.
-Interpretation technology is on a roll
at the Seattle/King County Clinic.
At times, interpreters are tied up helping someone
when they're also needed elsewhere.
The clinic reports 57% of its patients
speak languages other than English,
but these rolling video screens
can put patients face to face with someone who can interpret.
-[ Speaking foreign language ]
-We work with a partner called AMN healthcare.
They have remote, medically certified interpretation
that's available to us.
So while we have on site interpreters,
a lot of them are not medically certified.
We can't anticipate what languages patients
are going to be speaking when they walk in the door.
-The interpreting machines are invaluable,
and without the interpreters and the interpreting machines,
we wouldn't be able to provide them with the kind of care
that we are aspiring to provide them with.
And then they're able to really communicate their needs to us,
and we're able to meet their needs.
-Meeting the needs of thousands of patients
requires a huge cache of medical, dental
and vision supplies.
Gathering, purchasing, doing inventory,
and finally distributing these items for use
is a year-round job.
Project executive Julia Colson explains.
-Supply management is a year-round process.
It kind of starts when the clinic ends.
♪♪
In the weeks afterward, we inventory and organize
the supplies to figure out what remains.
-Welcome to the Seattle/King County Clinic supply room.
-Then we start planning the next clinic.
Based on our previous usage number and existing inventory,
we then create our order lists,
which itemize tens of thousands of supplies that we need.
All of the supplies that we get are new supplies,
and they are within the expiration date.
We take it very seriously that we are a health care facility.
And so we want to make sure all of the items
are the same types of items you would experience if you were
to go to a different health care facility in the community.
[ Forklift beeping ]
And I'm about five to six weeks before the clinic,
we have the supplies delivered
and we hold a week-long supply sorting event.
-Six cans I'm taking.
-There's tens of thousands of items
that we're having to track and count and organize and sort,
and some of them are teeny tiny,
you know, the size of a finishing nail.
-The dental burs are like little Dremel drill bits.
They're tiny, they're different sizes, different shapes.
We have tens of thousands of birds
that we have to count each year.
-About three days before the clinic opens,
dozens of pallets are moved from storage
into the clinic facilities,
and we also take delivery of equipment,
instruments and even more supplies.
Then volunteers help to unpack and distribute
and lay out and set up all of these items.
Once the clinic opens, we have leads who track
and manage the supplies on site, resupplying areas
or placing additional orders if needed.
And then when the clinic is done,
we have one day to pack everything up
and we've got to return loaned in rented items
to the rightful owners and get out of the facilities.
And then after load out, the supply management cycle repeats.
I mean, if people really sat down and thought about it
and really took a look around and went,
"Oh, there's a lot of stuff that's in this clinic.
I wonder how that all got here?"
Then they may kind of start to realize there's a lot of stuff,
but if we've done our job well, they have what they need to care
for the patients in front of them.
♪♪
-Next on "CityStream," this critical service
helps doctors make the correct diagnosis,
and without thousands of volunteers,
this clinic would not be possible.
♪♪
-The majority of the people come
do have some form of health care,
but they can't afford to use it because the co-pay is too large,
the out of pocket is unavailable.
You walk in the door and you're experiencing pain and infection
and it's affecting your whole life,
and we can fix that for you today.
-There might be some problems with the system,
but at least here there's not a problem with the people.
The people all want to help.
So I think that says a lot about our community.
-These doctors spend all the time in the world
because they're not doing it for money.
They're doing it from their heart.
-It's amazing. It's just so much love.
You know, you feel like family right here.
-Welcome back to this special edition of "CityStream,"
focused entirely on the upcoming Seattle/King County Clinic.
This incredible public service provides medical, dental
and vision care to all residents at no cost.
The dates for the clinic are February 15th
to the 18th at Seattle Center.
For more information, go to this website,
SeattleCenter.org/SKCclinic.
One service offered at the clinic gets little attention,
but it's critically important.
For patients potentially battling serious disease,
lab tests are key to helping doctors
determine the best treatment options.
-It's the magic of medicine that happens behind the scenes.
70% of all diagnosis and treatment
is based off of laboratory results.
After the patients are seen,
normally, the physicians will request for laboratory
tests to be done,
and from there we know exactly what to collect.
And so venipuncture and phlebotomy is performed.
We then take those samples...
[ Monitor beeps ]
...centrifuge them all down,
and send them to the regional Laboratory
for Kaiser Permanente
for us to be able to do those tests.
♪♪
It's incredibly complex.
A lot of instrumentation, a lot of automation,
a lot of personnel who have spent years
studying laboratory science and medicine.
It's a very dedicated and complex field.
So laboratory analyzes, gets those results out,
makes sure they're accurate and precise.
We get that back to the physicians,
and the physicians can see those results
and interpret it as a diagnosis.
♪♪
-Alright, Rick, I need your help with this one.
Looks like he has a history of chronic bronchiectasis.
-Two weeks out from the clinic,
all our labs are processed, and they flag results for us
which are abnormal.
-They should see a doctor, yeah.
-And then we need to get those results to patients
and make decisions about how quickly these laboratory tests
need to be followed up on.
I'd probably say immediate.
-Hepatitis B antibody titer less than eight.
-That means it's negative.
It's flagged, but it's fine.
So far this year, knock on wood,
we have not found anything
that is immediately life threatening.
-A little bit of cholesterol and a little bit of bile.
-Boy, that's really a little bit.
-Yesterday we worked with one of our medical directors
and two of our clinical leads
to do the sorting part of the process.
Today, we are doing the mailing part of the process
and eventually, by the end of the day,
we'll have all of our labs out in the world.
Obviously, labs come back
and you get this complicated sheet of paper
that has these flags on it that says abnormal or high or low,
but you don't really get the context to understand
what that means for you.
If you should go get seen tomorrow or if you can wait,
or if it might be slightly out of the normal range
but you really don't need follow up.
So that customization and that personalized plan for you
is really important.
It's part of our little effort to do as much follow up
and connecting patients with resources
outside of our four-day clinic.
-The commitment to the cause
and the end result of patient care is definitely shared.
It doesn't matter what field you choose here in health care,
the mission is the same.
♪♪
-An army of volunteers makes this special clinic run,
but none of the complex systems and connections would function
without the specialized help of Seattle IT.
-Frames should have one, Vision Checkout should have two.
My name is Stephen Burke of Seattle IT.
The clinic directors and everything,
they know exactly how critical IT is to the clinic.
-Seattle/King County Clinic could honestly not operate
without Seattle IT.
We have so many different systems across the entire clinic
that deal from everything from patient registration and records
to X-ray and ultrasound and EKG
all needing to talk to each other.
And none of these systems have ever worked together before.
We bring them on site in one day,
and with a matter of three days,
we have to be a completely functional health care facility.
-That's also used internally in the clinic
to track patient flow,
keep track of number of patients per day
and make sure people get through the steps
in the clinic too correctly.
-We have these roving devices
that have medically certified interpretation.
That's also part of our IT setup because it's got to connect
and we can call up hundreds of different languages
if we need them in the clinic.
-The mission of this event has been one
that shows the power of teamwork.
We want to show that we're invested in the community,
that this community is important to us,
and that we not only serve them through the services
that we provide, but also that we participate.
And you see your place of work in a different light.
-I've been doing this for 30 plus years.
I tell people this is the most important part of my job,
the clinic, and it's the most enjoyable, too.
So I, you know, I normally do desktop support,
but the clinic, that's the part that I enjoy
and feel most satisfied with.
-If I do my job correctly,
they don't think about IT at all.
It's very fulfilling.
-The Seattle/King County Clinic
is a tremendous undertaking that brings together
hundreds of businesses and organizations
and thousands of volunteers,
including retired nurse Frankie Manning
who knows just how essential this service is.
-I feel so grateful
because I know these people needs this care
and they can't get it no place else.
[ Voice breaking ] So I feel like this is important work.
-Important work indeed.
This clinic speaks volumes about the character of this community
and its willingness to help neighbors in need.
Producer Randy Eng has more.
-We are so lucky
because we have such a dedicated group of volunteers who come in.
-[Laughs]
-We only have four staff members
who work year round on the clinic,
and so with the operation of this magnitude,
without volunteers, we couldn't operate.
About a dozen people volunteer with us year round.
-Scrub brushes, long handle.
-Volunteers also staff supply sorting or to dispense
all of the eyeglasses.
-Welcome to Seattle/King County Clinic.
-And then, of course, we've got clinic week.
-I'm checking in for the first day.
-For the first day, in line right there.
You'll get your badge and you'll get your meal voucher.
-Volunteers. -Volunteers, super.
-Line one is open, so you can go to this.
-Thank you.
-So during that week we have as many volunteers
as we have patients.
-Over the course of the clinic,
that amounts to sometimes 3,000, 4,000 volunteers.
-Perfect. -Thank you.
-Volunteers come from a wide variety of backgrounds.
-I'm an X-ray tech by training.
-I am a retired clinical professor of medicine.
-I'm an accountant for Boeing. [ Laughs ]
-I have no medical or dental skills at all.
I mean, I have my basic first aid card, my CPR card,
but that's about it.
-I don't know anything medical.
I do not have a health care background,
but everybody's got something they can contribute.
-I call myself basically the official problem solver.
-We are accounting for the patient's information.
It has to be accurate, it has to be precise.
-I hope to bring my voice,
not only my Spanish-speaking voice,
but also my cultural competence
when I help a Spanish-speaking families.
-We've had CEOs, elected officials and celebrities.
You never know who you're going to be working with.
-I volunteer, and I always was in the intake
because I always wanted to be able to look people in the eye
and tell them that they not only deserve this,
but we were grateful to give it to them.
-It was nothing short of wonderful to see
a lot of familiar faces,
a lot of new faces coming together
to do exactly what this clinic is for.
♪♪
There was feedback and stories about their experience here,
some for the first time,
some this is their eighth year coming back.
In our first year of the clinic,
Bertha volunteered with us
and she wanted to stay past the closure time.
Well, in the middle of the night there was a huge windstorm.
It knocked out all the power,
and Bertha had still been working.
And so when the emergency generators came on,
I got a call from the facility, people saying Bertha is here
and she wants the passcode to get back into the computers
to continue her work.
The next year, she said,
"What area is the most important to you?
And that's where I want to be."
-We had a patient come up, and he had almost every tooth
pulled that year, and he came up to us.
He came up to every person that had on a volunteer shirt
and couldn't thank us enough.
You know, he had been in such pain for so long,
and even though he didn't have a tooth left in his mouth,
he was grateful.
I mean, that's the paycheck right there.
That is the paycheck, is when you see
that you've made a just a huge effect on people's lives.
-There are definitely people in our community
who are drawn to volunteer work.
They want to know that they are giving back,
that they're supporting people in need,
that they're supporting something
that's going to uplift the community in general.
-Why do I do this?
You know, I hope for the day somehow,
somewhere, that we don't need free clinics, right?
That's my hope.
But until then, we need to care for people
and this is a way to give back.
♪♪
-That wraps up this special edition of "CityStream"
from McCaw Hall.
The Seattle/King County Clinic
begins its four day run on February 15th.
All medical, dental and vision services are free.
If you'd like more information about the clinic,
either to take advantage of the health services
or to volunteer, check out this website,
SeattleCenter.org/SKCclinic.
I'm Tatevik Aprikyan. Thank you for watching.
♪♪