||| FROM ANNE PRESSON for ORCAS ISLAND HEALTH CARE DISTRICT |||
We appreciate the community’s patience as we’ve continued working through the details associated with the consolidation of the two existing primary care practices and building of a new clinic for the Orcas community.
Please know that OIHCD and Island Hospital have been working hard to put the pieces in place. Establishing strong leadership for the new clinic was our top priority, as we were committed to ensuring the team has the support they need to successfully deliver on what we set out to achieve with this process.. We are now very proud and excited to announce that Dr. Frank James will take on the role of Medical Director for the Island Primary Care – Orcas Clinic as of April 1.
Over the past year, many people have come to know Dr. James through his role as the San Juan County Public Health Officer. Throughout the course of the pandemic, Dr. James provided steadfast leadership as we faced unprecedented challenges to our health care system. Under his direction, San Juan County had one of the most impressive outcomes from COVID in both incidence and severity of cases.
Dr. James will spend the first 4-6 weeks focused on his role as Medical Director. This will include helping to ensure the operations and clinic workflows support the team and patients. During this period, he will also be working closely with the medical team from Island Hospital’s Anacortes clinics who will be seeing patients and helping the team orient to the Island Hospital culture. By mid-May Dr. James will take on a provider role and will be instrumental in the recruitment, training and mentoring the providers.
A few key areas of focus for the Medical Director role shall include, but not be limited to:
- Medical supervision of the patient treatment program within the clinic.
- Lead the Clinic’s Qualities Assurance Programs and actively participate in developing quality measures that are appropriate for a rural, remote clinic.
- Serve as a community provider liaison by advancing community wellness, preventative and chronic care programs and initiatives.
- Serve on the joint Quality, Community Engagement, and After-hours Committees to help direct and ensure future efforts are aligned with the needs of the Clinic patients and staff.
Dr. James brings a wealth of experience in both public health and family practice. He also understands what it takes to build a successful primary care clinic and was one of the founders of the Interfaith Family Health Center in Bellingham (now Unity Care). He has served as San Juan County’s Health Officer since 1992 and will continue in that position. Serving in this dual role will facilitate a close collaboration with our public health partners and will support an emphasis on establishing partnerships with those who share our commitment to building a healthier community. Island Hospital’s model, under the leadership of Dr. James, will focus on building an integrated care team that provides high-quality health care in a coordinated and caring manner for the whole person and whole community.
Please join us in welcoming Dr. James to the Orcas community.
Be sure to register for the March 18 th Community Briefing to hear more from Dr. James about his vision for the future of health care on Orcas.
As always, the Commissioners and Superintendent Presson welcome feedback and questions from our community. You can find our contact information at www.orcashealth.org.
That is great news!
Yes, this is very good news. Especially since Dr. James has experience setting up a medical clinic in Bellingham.
Sounds like a very experienced administrator. But, I will be interested to see who are the medical doctors doing the actual clinical/patient care work? I have faith in NP’s and PA’s doing their jobs, but there remains a role for MD’s in patient care.
I am so relieved and excited that Dr. James will be a big part of the Orcas Clinic. He has been a stellar guide in this past year of Covid-19 for our county. His wisdom and experience will be highly valued. Welcome, Dr. James!
Thank you for your kind words and confidence in my leadership. I look forward to Thursday, March 19th at 5 PM when we will be presenting the core clinical team for the transition and the plans for coordination of care, specialist access and afterhours plans. I am excited to get started and looking forward to working with the entire community on Orcas.
Dr Kaye I will be spending most of my time in direct patient care. It has been my experience over many years that being clinically grounded in doing the work is how we can best serve in an administrative role. Patient care is the most rewarding work I have ever done and will always be the focus of my career. During COVID I had to cut back on my medical practice due to the time demands of keeping two different jurisdictions healthy and safe but that is improving dramatically with the vaccines. I have also been a primary investigator heping to run the Novavax Phase 3 COVID vaccine trial in Native American populations that has now fully enrolled and I am able to turn over patient care for that work as well. One of the things that attracted me to working with Island Hospital was the fact that Charles Hall has a long career as a clinician before taking on the administrative duties there. We will be introducing the full clinical team on Thursday evening and I hope you can join us then. Dr James
Dr. James, that sounds great. Glad to now have faith that the medical problems on Orcas have been solved and at a lower cost as well! Bravo! Unless it’s on Zoom, I can’t join you, but I wish you all the best and look forward to hearing of great success. I know that people there have tremendous faith in you. This kind of community subsidized health care will help to attract more people to Orcas to live and enrich the community.