New health center meeting needs
By Michele Linck Journal staff writer | Posted: Sunday, August 31, 2008
Patient Duane Ver Mulm of Rock Valley goes over a health notebook with nurse practitoner Julie Beehler during an appointment at the Greater Sioux Community Health Center in Sioux Center, Iowa. The clinic recently opened and provides patient care on a sliding fee scale. (Staff photo by Tim Hynds)
SIOUX CENTER, Iowa n Duane Ver Mulm said he was feeling much better Tuesday as he waited to see one of the nurse practitioners on staff at the new Greater Sioux Community Health Center here.
It was a follow-up visit. Ver Mulm, 50, of Rock Valley, Iowa, was among the first patients treated at the Health Center after it opened July 7.
“I didn’t have much money and figured this would be a better way to (get) healthier,” he said. He would have gone without medical care if the clinic hadn't been available, he said.
The health center, operating in a remodeled former bowling alley at 338 First Ave. NW, is the newest of 13 federally supported community health centers in Iowa and joins more than 3,000 nationwide.
Such community health centers serve anyone of any income level -- with or without insurance -- on a sliding fee scale, according to executive director Nancy Dykstra. They are not free clinics but are private, not-for-profit institutions charged with providing medical services to the underserved.
Underserved doesn't always mean uninsured, however. “You can be underserved even if you have good insurance if the language spoken at your health center isn’t your language,” said Dr. Noreen O’Shea, the new health center’s medical director.
For now, the Greater Sioux Community Health Center provides primary health care and prenatal care. It is staffed by a family practice physician, two nurse practitioners, a part-time nurse-midwife, a nurse, medical assistant, scheduler and interpreter.
Of the clinic’s 5,000 square feet, 3,600 are finished to hold six examining rooms, office space and a small lab for simple tests such as those for pregnancy and blood sugars. More complicated tests are performed by an outside lab. The center also offers the state’s children’s vaccination program.
The remaining 1,400 feet is set aside for a dental clinic, to be finished next year with money from a federal earmark Dykstra credits to Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.
Dykstra said patients are already asking for dental services. The center’s board would also like to eventually offer a pharmacy program, mental health services and substance abuse counseling.
With a new $100,000 federal grant announced last week by Harkin, Dykstra said the center would buy an electrocardiograph machine and a colposcope for cervical exams.
The center will receive $650,000 from the state next year as it resubmits its application for highly competitive, permanent federal funding. Just 42 of 174 applicants got it this year. In the meantime, the center will continue to meet federal regulations and operate as if it were already permanently funded. That "look-alike" performance is the key to permanent funding, Dykstra said.
`All one system’
Molly Korver, the school nurse for the Sioux Center Community School District, said the health center is a "wonderful asset" for parents who can't afford care or don't have insurance. "They can get their kids in and feeling better and back to school to learn," she said.
Korver said the dental clinic will be especially welcome since it is hard to find affordable dental care for some students. The school system has more than 1,200 students in transitional kindergarten through 12th grade. Brochures about the new health center were available at registration this year, she said.
Dr. Richard Jongewaard, a private practice physician in Sioux Center who sat on the center’s planning committee and served as interim medical director, said the private medical community is often concerned that a community health center will hurt business. But he said he hasn't found a doctor in any community who kept that opinion after a center opened.
“We try to look at it as, we’re all part of one big system,” Jongewaard said of the local situation. He said the health center isn’t taking patients from others but largely sees people who didn’t seek care before.
Jongewaard and Dr. Kelly Pomerenke, who rotate staffing the emergency room at Sioux Center Community Hospital, said they believe they have seen a decline in the number of nonemergency visits to the emergency room since the health center opened. Pomerenke said it's just a gut feeling right now and he has no hard numbers. If that is the case, he said, it will become more evident when cold and flu season hits.
Meeting a need
Seeds for the center were planted in 2001 as a group of concerned citizens and health care providers, partnering with the Sioux County Public Health Department and Community Action Agency, discussed what could be done to help the increasing number of families struggling to get primary health care.
About 100 patients have received care since the health center opened two months ago. Eighteen sought care on Monday alone, the busiest single day so far. Dykstra said although some patients are fully insured and have had good care, many patients haven’t received any health care in as many as five years and come to the center with complex needs.
Research that led to opening the center showed that 16 percent of Sioux County residents lacked health insurance and 25.3 percent, or nearly 8,000 people, live at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, Dykstra said. In addition, she said, 35 percent of the children under age 5 are Hispanic, largely with parents who face language barriers in navigating the health care system.
Now that the center is operating, Dykstra said, the observations and research in the years following the early talks are proving to be correct. There is a need for a Community Health Center in Northwest Iowa, she said.
Michele Linck may be reached at 712-293-4227 or michele.linck@lee.net.
Who’s being served?
In the full month of operation:
80 percent of the patients were from Sioux County, population 32,000; others came from O’Brien, Lyon, Osceola, Plymouth and Woodbury counties.
59 percent were Caucasian; 38 percent Hispanic; rest Asian.
22 percent were insured; 78 percent uninsured
It was a follow-up visit. Ver Mulm, 50, of Rock Valley, Iowa, was among the first patients treated at the Health Center after it opened July 7.
“I didn’t have much money and figured this would be a better way to (get) healthier,” he said. He would have gone without medical care if the clinic hadn't been available, he said.
The health center, operating in a remodeled former bowling alley at 338 First Ave. NW, is the newest of 13 federally supported community health centers in Iowa and joins more than 3,000 nationwide.
Such community health centers serve anyone of any income level -- with or without insurance -- on a sliding fee scale, according to executive director Nancy Dykstra. They are not free clinics but are private, not-for-profit institutions charged with providing medical services to the underserved.
Underserved doesn't always mean uninsured, however. “You can be underserved even if you have good insurance if the language spoken at your health center isn’t your language,” said Dr. Noreen O’Shea, the new health center’s medical director.
For now, the Greater Sioux Community Health Center provides primary health care and prenatal care. It is staffed by a family practice physician, two nurse practitioners, a part-time nurse-midwife, a nurse, medical assistant, scheduler and interpreter.
Of the clinic’s 5,000 square feet, 3,600 are finished to hold six examining rooms, office space and a small lab for simple tests such as those for pregnancy and blood sugars. More complicated tests are performed by an outside lab. The center also offers the state’s children’s vaccination program.
The remaining 1,400 feet is set aside for a dental clinic, to be finished next year with money from a federal earmark Dykstra credits to Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.
Dykstra said patients are already asking for dental services. The center’s board would also like to eventually offer a pharmacy program, mental health services and substance abuse counseling.
With a new $100,000 federal grant announced last week by Harkin, Dykstra said the center would buy an electrocardiograph machine and a colposcope for cervical exams.
The center will receive $650,000 from the state next year as it resubmits its application for highly competitive, permanent federal funding. Just 42 of 174 applicants got it this year. In the meantime, the center will continue to meet federal regulations and operate as if it were already permanently funded. That "look-alike" performance is the key to permanent funding, Dykstra said.
`All one system’
Molly Korver, the school nurse for the Sioux Center Community School District, said the health center is a "wonderful asset" for parents who can't afford care or don't have insurance. "They can get their kids in and feeling better and back to school to learn," she said.
Korver said the dental clinic will be especially welcome since it is hard to find affordable dental care for some students. The school system has more than 1,200 students in transitional kindergarten through 12th grade. Brochures about the new health center were available at registration this year, she said.
Dr. Richard Jongewaard, a private practice physician in Sioux Center who sat on the center’s planning committee and served as interim medical director, said the private medical community is often concerned that a community health center will hurt business. But he said he hasn't found a doctor in any community who kept that opinion after a center opened.
“We try to look at it as, we’re all part of one big system,” Jongewaard said of the local situation. He said the health center isn’t taking patients from others but largely sees people who didn’t seek care before.
Jongewaard and Dr. Kelly Pomerenke, who rotate staffing the emergency room at Sioux Center Community Hospital, said they believe they have seen a decline in the number of nonemergency visits to the emergency room since the health center opened. Pomerenke said it's just a gut feeling right now and he has no hard numbers. If that is the case, he said, it will become more evident when cold and flu season hits.
Meeting a need
Seeds for the center were planted in 2001 as a group of concerned citizens and health care providers, partnering with the Sioux County Public Health Department and Community Action Agency, discussed what could be done to help the increasing number of families struggling to get primary health care.
About 100 patients have received care since the health center opened two months ago. Eighteen sought care on Monday alone, the busiest single day so far. Dykstra said although some patients are fully insured and have had good care, many patients haven’t received any health care in as many as five years and come to the center with complex needs.
Research that led to opening the center showed that 16 percent of Sioux County residents lacked health insurance and 25.3 percent, or nearly 8,000 people, live at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, Dykstra said. In addition, she said, 35 percent of the children under age 5 are Hispanic, largely with parents who face language barriers in navigating the health care system.
Now that the center is operating, Dykstra said, the observations and research in the years following the early talks are proving to be correct. There is a need for a Community Health Center in Northwest Iowa, she said.
Michele Linck may be reached at 712-293-4227 or michele.linck@lee.net.
Who’s being served?
In the full month of operation:
80 percent of the patients were from Sioux County, population 32,000; others came from O’Brien, Lyon, Osceola, Plymouth and Woodbury counties.
59 percent were Caucasian; 38 percent Hispanic; rest Asian.
22 percent were insured; 78 percent uninsured
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getout wrote on Oct 17, 2008 10:25 AM:
BizcutBrain wrote on Aug 31, 2008 7:27 AM: