Vista del Valle Centro de Salud | Reseta Para Una Communiad Sana

Director’s Quarterly Letter

October 2009

By Steve Clark, Executive Director

Hard to believe we are in October already. It has been a busy quarter with lots of changes. Stimulus grants went out to all Federally Qualified Health Centers and Valley View received our share. We were invited to participate in a community effort to reduce unnecessary use of the Emergency Room at the hospital resulting in a Valley View expansion clinic at the hospital. I was invited to a round table discussion on Health Care reform with Representative Brian Baird that was very informative. I suggested that FQHC clinics "are" the public option; there went my political career. We have also been invited to help our neighbor city to the west, Raymond as they are worried about their ongoing health care.

We have brought in over $225,656 of stimulus money this quarter to Valley View and Lewis County. Stimulus monies were designed to add jobs and value to the local level to create jobs. Most all of our monies were spent in Lewis County. Unfortunately we received some bad news with the good; we did not receive either the pharmacy grant or the mental health grant and we did not win the award for the Veteran's clinic.

Valley View has been truly blessed by our returning medical providers signing new contracts for the coming year. We have also been experiencing an overwhelming interest in our clinic from new graduates and some experienced clinicians, a nice change for the shortages experienced last year. Valley View continues to grow inside our existing framework as well. Some of our current providers will be shuttling to urgent care or moving to Onalaska or Toledo.

Urgent Care anyone? Most saw the great write up in the local paper about the collaboration between the hospital and Valley View. Scheduled for December 1st, our Urgent Care center should be able to relieve some of the crowding at the Emergency Room. We will employ two or three providers and support staff and be open from noon to 10PM every day. One of the main goals of the center will be to help patients establish a primary care home.

Early next year we will be moving ahead with an expansion to Pacific County and open an office for both medical and dental services in Raymond. We are being asked to by a local committee that fears retiring doctors and dentist will leave their community without health care. This could drastically affect the local hospital and future development for that area of the county. We expect to open with one or two medical providers and a full time dentist.

Valley View Health Centers provides medical, dental, and behavioral health services to Lewis County residents, primarily to the uninsured and under-insured, with payments based on a sliding fee scale.