Tuesday, September 23, 2003
North County Times

By: GIG CONAUGHTON - Staff Writer

County supervisors Monday unanimously directed their staff to start pursuing federal funds to create a new "2-1-1" hotline, designed to give county residents a single number to reach hundreds of health services and take pressure off overburdened "9-1-1" emergency operators.

Supervisor Greg Cox, who has been working on a county-created 2-1-1 committee since April, said he hoped that with federal funding, the county could create its own "one-stop shopping" multilingual help line for county residents by January 2005.

Similar 2-1-1 lines are already in operation in 22 states, giving 65 million people one place to call when they are not sure where to go for help ---- rather than a maze of individual numbers for services ---- whether they have questions about where to get shelter from an abusive spouse, how to get vaccinations for their children, or where to get hospice services for an ailing parent or loved one.

Highly trained operators proficient in several languages would be hired to be conversant with all the services available within the county. They then could direct people to the correct services when they call for help.

County officials said Tuesday that there are as many as 200 different information lines for health services in the San Diego county now.

Last week, a bipartisan coalition of federal legislators, including U.S. Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, introduced a bill designed to come up with $200 million for states to implement 2-1-1 hotlines.

Individual states would have to come up with half the money to create their 2-1-1 programs in order to get a matching 50 percent subsidy from the federal government, if the bill eventually became law.

On Tuesday, supervisors directed Walt Ekard, San Diego County's chief administrative officer, to draft a letter of support for the federal legislation, and to work with the county's 2-1-1 Leadership Committee to start pushing for a share of the funding the bill would provide.

Meanwhile, health services leaders from around the county who have served on the 2-1-1 committee said the new referral line would be an important step forward for providing ---- and coordinating ---- services for needy residents.

Tracy Ream, executive director of Neighborhood Health Care, a collection of health-care clinics in North County, East County and southwest Riverside County, said: "We're rich in health-care resources within the county, but it's confusing. This (hotline) would tie all the services together ---- and 2-1-1 is easy to remember."

Kristin Garrett, executive director of San Diego's Community Health Improvement Partners, said, "In my opinion, it would be just incredible, because what you would be doing is providing people with immediate access to health and human services."

Community Health Improvement Partners is a coalition of San Diego County's acute-care hospitals, the county health and human services department, community clinics and other health-care groups.

Ream said that having the 2-1-1 line would not only help those people seeking services, but also the agencies that provide those services.

She said under the current fragmented system, officials working with one service may not be familiar with all the other services available countywide. Because of that, when people call them looking for help they cannot provide, those workers often then have to search through the maze of systems attempting to find the right place to send those people.

However, Ream and others said that one of the biggest side benefits in creating a 2-1-1 line could be to take some of the unnecessary burden off the 9-1-1 emergency operators.

Emergency personnel across the county and state say those lines are often misused by people with nonemergency needs who call for help.

"They get numerous calls that are not true emergencies," Ream said. "And it's people just trying to find out where they can get help. Having that 2-1-1 line would provide a linkage, and help keep the 9-1-1 lines reserved for real emergencies."

Cox said the 50-member 2-1-1 Leadership Committee began meeting in April to investigate the possibility of creating the new hotline here, and has picked up speed in recent months.

Contact staff writer Gig Conaughton at (760) 739-6696 or gconaughton@nctimes.com