Our Mission
CAPH, a non-profit trade organization representing California's public hospitals and health systems since 1983, works to strengthen the capacity of its members to advance community health; ensure access to comprehensive, high-quality, culturally sensitive health care services for all Californians; and educate the next generation of health care professionals. Our passionate belief that everyone deserves an equal opportunity to enjoy good health – regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay – drives our policy and advocacy agenda.
Our Work
CAPH represents 19 public hospitals, health care systems and academic medical centers in 15 counties where more than 81% of Californians reside. Our members comprise the core group of health care providers that make up the state’s medical safety net. They deliver extraordinary levels of service to low-income, uninsured and other individuals in need of care through both the inpatient and outpatient setting, and provide essential community services such as emergency, trauma and burn care that benefit all Californians. CAPH members include county-owned and -operated facilities and University of California medical centers.
CAPH serves as the health policy and advocacy voice for our members on both the state and federal level. We inform and educate policy makers, the media and other stakeholders about the work that takes place in our public hospitals and clinics so that they can better understand the essential and wide-reaching nature of these efforts. We develop new programs and policies that improve the quality of health care and access to care for millions of Californians. We provide detailed financial analyses, guidance and counsel to elected and administration officials and their staff to help them develop policies that enable our public hospitals to best serve their communities. We also work closely with our safety net colleagues, coordinating our efforts with other health care and social service providers to assure that the needs of our shared low-income constituencies are met. We work in collaboration with our research and quality improvement affiliate, the California Health Care Safety Net Institute (SNI).
How Can CAPH Help You? The details of public health care policy, financing and legislation are often complex. Our highly skilled professional staff is available to respond to inquiries from legislators and administration officials and their staff, members of the media, health care stakeholders and the general public on a wide range of health care policy issues, especially those that concern California 's low-income and uninsured populations, the health care safety net, and care coordination for patients with chronic disease.