— from Adaline Adams, BJ Arnold, Dick Arnold, Carol Boring, Dale Heisinger, JoEllen Moldoff, Patsy Stephens, Stu Stephens —
A small group met to consider the question: How can the health needs of Orcas Island best be served? We agreed that it is in the best interests of our community to support the concept of integrated medical practices i.e. a collaboration among the three practices, and believe that partnering with UWNC (University of Washington Neighborhood Clinics) would greatly enhance the level of medical care.
While we are not in favor of bringing in UWNC or any other entity if they come in only supporting the OMC/OMF, we are in favor of working with UWNC to develop a new/different plan.
We now have an opportunity to let UWNC know how important it is to the members of our community to integrate the practices as we move toward a relationship with them. Integration will improve the delivery of quality care to everyone in our community and it will increase the likelihood of a sustainable financial future for that care.
We urge you to send emails to Debra Gussin— dgussin@uwpn.org—and Matthew Sobotta— msobotta@UW.edu at UWNC, to request that they support the concept of integrated medical practices on Orcas, so as to provide the resources of UWNC to the entire community.
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Happy to help send the message and get involved in any other way. I have worked in the healthcare space for over 20 years in various leadership roles. I continue to work with various stakeholders and have significant contacts. If I can be of assistance please let me know.
I didn’t have any emails from this group to cc but confirming I just sent a long email to the contacts provided. Hoping they read it and respond.
What is your vision of the collaboration and integration? How would it work in practice? Would there be one shared facility? Must all three doctors be allowed to practice there, regardless of if they meet the UWNC hiring criteria? Would all three facilities staff be required to be employed too, even if there is overlap of skills? If a doctor or staffer didn’t meet the UWNC requirements, and was therefore not part of the facility, would you nix supporting UWNC partnership?
Jay, some very good points to ponder.
What are the boundaries or better yet, the base lines for this integration.. the challenge is the specificities.
A welcome concept could be integration, but whom and how it will be accomplished may be the challenge on Orcas.
It would seem that we have a house that is divided, which is unfortunate, like a home divided, division tends to govern rather than the well being for the family..
I’m hopeful for more dialog on such an important issue. We have dedicated physicians doing great things here on this Island, it would be humbling to unify their efforts to a sound resolve giving all a well established baseline for progress and accountability. Which could only bless all involved, patient and physician.
This presupposes that all doctors want to work together in a integrated setting. What if one doctor doesn’t want to? What if another doctor moves on island and hangs out his shingle? Personally I think providing unified care would benefit the residents of Orcas, but what we as individuals want does not determine what the doctors want.
Thanks Clyde and Jim.
Tony Giefer’s recent post said: “anyone UWNC hires will have to apply for employment. That goes for all the staff including me – the OMC physician… It is their policy to thoroughly vet all applicants and make their own hiring decisions.” (source: https://theorcasonian.com/guest-opinion-heres/)
Talking about bringing everyone together into one happy family puts the cart before the horse. When it comes to UWNC, the family will be determined through vetting of qualified doctors and staff. They have a good track record and I don’t want to, nor am I qualified to, micro-manage their process.
I fear that the well-intentioned folks who THINK they know what is best for all of the community(which is a tad arrogant I might add) could possibly be a damper for UWNC to want to come. Taking Orcas on financially is challenge enough. If they have to deal with a group of emotional folks who “want it their way”, they may chose not to want to be involved because of the potential future migraine.
If we want UWNC to be on Orcas we need to allow them to run their business they way they know how. How silly(maybe even a bit insulting) to want them to come and then try to tell them how to run THEIR business! They have much more experience. We need to trust the process.
And the very LAST thing Orcas needs is to have one of the past doctors be medical manager! After all the water under the bridge with past personalities, I feel that would be a serious mistake indeed. But I expect UWNC already understands that through the past e-mails. Hopefully they also check out some of the statements that were made.
Maggie
From my perspective, it is the willingness of the medical professionals to work together in order to provide emergency care 24/7 that is the most important element of this discussion. If all of our local doctors are willing to schedule on-call response for after hours, weekends, holidays and so forth, it does not matter if they maintain separate daytime offices to treat their patients.
If I need a physical, a flu shot or have a minor aliment, I really don’t care which doctor provides the service. I happen to prefer Dr.Tony. My wife chooses Dr. Shinstrom. If we have an emergency, the only alternative to local care is a MedFlight to St. Joe’s (Many thanks to OIFR for their quick responses; note plural).
In order that we not “burn out” our local physicians, every effort should be made to coordinate their experience and schedule 24/7 care to the maximum benefit of our community. The use of the Orcas Medical Facility is incidental to that goal.
On a related issue, why is it necessary to spend $700,000 to transfer our records to UW Medical, and more money every year to maintain those records? It would seem that the medical records that pertain to me, are mine as I paid for the services that created them. If I move to another place, my records travel with me. YES??
I so appreciate everyone’s wonderful comments!! Ed, regarding your medical records being yours alone, yes and no. In fact the medical practice owns your records and has a legal responsibility to protect and archive them according to very specific records retention rules. Of course, should you move to another practice, a copy of those records would be sent to your new provider, but only with your authorization. And you can get a copy for yourself.
The cost of transferring records is significant, but occurs only one time. Medical data, especially in a primary care office, are quite complex. Your records include reports from specialists you’ve seen and hospitalizations you’ve had at other sites, which are scanned into your record as .pdf files. Other aspects of your record, like lab reports and progress notes, are entered as raw data. Moving all of this from one system to another means coordinating the old data system with the new and requires specialized IT skills. But getting our records into the EPIC system would allow seemless sharing of records to most major hospital systems in the area, and beyond.
The annual cost of running a clinic is simply greater than the revenues generated. Especially when urgent care is also provided. The annual subsidy UWNC is requesting is to cover those cost overruns. Like others, I doubt it would be as high as $300k, but they must budget conservatively.