Agenda

Return

D.3

To:	Board of Supervisors
From:	Anna Roth, Health Services Director
Date:	October 23, 2018

Contra

Costa

County

Subject:

Temporary Hire of County Retiree Waiver of 180-day Sit-Out Period in the Health Services Department

APPROVE	OTHER
RECOMMENDATION OF CNTY ADMINISTRATOR	RECOMMENDATION OF BOARD COMMITTEE

Action of Board On: 10/23/2018

APPROVED AS RECOMMENDED

OTHER

Clerks Notes:

VOTE OF SUPERVISORS

AYE:

John Gioia, District I Supervisor
Candace Andersen, District II Supervisor
Diane Burgis, District III Supervisor
Karen Mitchoff, District IV Supervisor
Federal D. Glover, District V Supervisor

Contact:

Jo-Anne Linares, (925) 957-5240

I hereby certify that this is a true and correct copy of an action taken and entered on the minutes of the Board of Supervisors on the date shown.
ATTESTED: October 23, 2018
David Twa,

BY:	, Deputy

RECOMMENDATION(S):

1. Consider waiving the 180-day sit-out period for Fayechoy Chao, Medical Interpreter, in the Health Services Department;
2. Find that the appointment of Ms. Chao is necessary to fill a critically needed position; and

3. Approve and authorize the hiring of retiree Ms. Chao as a temporary employee effective October 23, 2018 through November 30, 2019.

FISCAL IMPACT:

Upon approval, this action has an annual cost of approximately $31,652. The entire cost is fully funded by 95% Enterprise Fund I and 5% Health Care Interpreter Network (HCIN).

BACKGROUND:

Fayechoy Chao retired from County service on September 28, 2018. Ms. Chao worked as a Medical Interpreter in the Health Services' Linguistic Access Services Unit supporting Health Services and the County's Health Plan for over 37 years with medical interpretation in Laotian, Mien and Thai languages. Federal and State mandates require the provision of qualified interpretation in these languages for the more than 5,445 patient encounters within our health system annually.

Ms. Chao has provided medical interpretation for more than 800 Laotian, Mien and Thai patients/clients of CCHS and for 60 hospital and health centers nationally on the Health Care Interpreter Network. She is a highly qualified interpreter with years of experience, who is from the community she serves and is a highly respected member of that patient/client population as well as the professional interpreter community. Because of legal mandates to provide qualified medical interpretation to this patient/client population for each clinical encounter, and because of the difficulty in hiring an interpreter with the specific and essential skills of this particular employee, the Department is requesting the 180-day sit-out period be waived in order to provide a smooth continuity of care for this limited English proficient population.

CONSEQUENCE OF NEGATIVE ACTION:

If this action is not approved, the capacity of the Linguistic Access Services Unit and HCIN would be severely compromised for these three languages. It would be exceedingly difficult to hire a qualified and experienced medical interpreter for Laotian, Mien and Thai languages. Moreover, the Department would be required to spend more with an outside vendor to obtain this critical service.