Community Health Center Gets A Makeover
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| 8/13/2009 |
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| In a rural state like North Dakota, Community Health Centers are important. When the closest hospital is an hour and a half away, keeping that clinic right down the street for a quick check-up is necessary. The Northland Community Health Center in McClusky says without federal stimulus money to make much-needed improvements to the facility, it may have become obsolete. Frieda Wahl lives on a farm just outside of McClusky and visits the Northland Community Health Center about once a week, mostly to have blood work done. She says without it, she`d have to travel to Bismarck and during the winter she says sometimes you never know when you leave home in the morning, if you`ll make it back at night. That`s why she`s excited her clinic is making the necessary changes it takes to keep caring for her. "It`s really important. You can come in here and have a shot or whatever and go home. Within an hour, you can be home, says Wahl. The Health Center received $200 thousand in stimulus money to make improvements, like updating the electrical system, creating a lab area, making all doors handicap accessible, and running data lines through all the rooms as part of an electronic medical records system. Sot/Sarah: "Lots of our people see specialists in Bismarck and then they come here and they may have changes in medicines or things like that, that have been changed in their care and then I will have access to those records. It`ll just make a better flow, better continuity of care for our patients," says Family Nurse Practitioner Sarah Kaspari-Baker. The clinic was built 50 years ago to promote health care in the community. Its CEO says these improvements have solidified another 50 years of service. "We need to keep that infrastructure so we feel we`ve done enough to this building that it will be able to provide that service to the patients in the area," says Faye Hagen, CEO. Because without it down the street, the health center says patients simply wouldn`t make the drive to get the care they need. The Health Center sees between 13 and 16 hundred patients a year. The work isn`t quite finished yet, but Hagen says everything should be done by the end of next week. |
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