History

Our Story

For over forty years, Salud Para La Gente (Salud) has made sure our community has had a doctor when it needed one. Salud was founded in 1978. We began as a single free clinic offering healthcare primarily to farmworkers living and working on California’s Central Coast. Since that time, Salud has become a federally qualified health center (FQHC), and grown to five clinics and four school-based health centers providing affordable, high-quality healthcare to nearly 27,000 patients.

We serve a unique, vibrant community including farmworkers and their families. Our origins are rooted in serving local farmworkers and their families. Our region produces the healthy food that feeds America yet our community suffers disproportionately from poor health outcomes like inadequate nutrition, obesity, and diabetes.

Recent Milestones

At Salud, our team is dedicated to continually improving the quality of the care we provide and increasing the services we offer our patients. We’re proud of how our latest accomplishments allow us to better serve our community.

Salud has nearly 100 providers who provide family health, women’s health (OB/GYN), pediatric, dental, vision, wellness & counseling, and specialty care services as well as nursing, lactation, and telehealth services.
Salud is the only Medi-Cal Women’s Health (OB/GYN) provider in South County. In 2016, we added two new women’s health care offices.
In January 2016, Salud established the first Santa Cruz County OBGYN Hospitalist Team, including Certified Nurse Midwives, providing care 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in the labor and delivery unit at Watsonville Community Hospital. Salud delivers 90 newborns a month at Watsonville Community Hospital.
In 2017, Salud’s OBGYN Hospitalist Team and Watsonville Community Hospital, working together, surpassed the federal Healthy People 2020 target for reducing Cesarean section deliveries. In 2017, the C-section rate decreased to 16.7 percent, beating the Healthy People 2020 target by 7.2 percent.
In 2016, we completed the expansion of our East Beach clinic in Watsonville from 17,000 to 24,000 sq. ft.
In 2017, Salud increased our specialty care services by adding telehealth services, and providing access to in-house chiropractic and nephrology care.
We consistently meet or exceed our clinical and financial performance goals.
Salud has national accreditation as a Level III Patient-Centered Medical Home from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA).
For 2017, Central California Alliance for Health awarded Salud the “silver” in Santa Cruz County for HEDIS (Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set) Measures.
In 2019, Salud celebrates its 40th Anniversary. Bucking national trends, half of Salud’s patients are under the age of 21. We are part of a nationwide movement focusing on disease prevention, understanding that every decision made in both public and private spheres — from clean air regulations to local sidewalk zoning to housing and school conditions — has an impact on people’s health.