The 911 calls come from all corners of northern Los Angeles County’s rural desert communities: Asthma attack. Elders on their own who have run out of prescription drugs and need help. Alcohol-induced illnesses. Mental health-related episodes.
Those are the calls Dr. Clayton Kazan wants, the kinds of ailments he knows he can fix with a lock box filled with emergency medications and an electrocardiogram that he carries in his Ford Explorer.
His equipment and tools may be low-tech, especially compared to the smartphone apps and telehealth devices hospitals nationwide are experimenting with to steer non-life threatening illnesses away from their emergency departments.
But the lock box contains what Kazan calls a more personal way of helping residents across the vast and mostly rural Antelope Valley, where primary and specialty care remains challenging to find, even among the insured.