Health District Has a Contract with Orcas Family Health Center

— by Susan McBain, Orcas Issues reporter —

The Orcas Island Health Care District (OIHCD) reached another milestone on November 13, signing a contract with one of the island’s two major medical providers, the Orcas Family Health Center (OFHC), for the period January–September 2019. The commissioners’ approval of Resolution 2018-23 sealed the deal, and resulted in applause from both commissioners and onlookers.

OIHCD continues to negotiate with the other major provider, UW Neighborhood Clinics (UWNC), on an interim funding agreement. That agreement will be followed by a 2019 contract as soon as agreement on contract provisions can be reached.

The commissioners wanted to ensure that the final contract with OFHC did not require OFHC to do anything that UWNC’s contract will not require, so they removed some language from the OFHC contract concerning staff selection and retention. The contract also specifies what data OFHC will track on after-hours calls, including the number of calls received, source of each call (the patient/family or EMS), number of times the on-call provider saw a patient at the clinic after hours, final disposition of each incident, and general nature of the presenting problems. The information will help the commissioners understand the kinds of after-hours care that are most necessary for islanders.

Other topics covered were continuing the effort with UWNC to agree on after-hours services, planning for re-roofing of the UWNC building (owned by OIHCD), handling comments submitted to OIHCD concerning issues at individual clinics, and dealing with OFHC’s loss of suitable refrigeration for childhood vaccines.

Although the Commission’s work will not stop, the commissioners felt that their pace of activities had slowed enough to cut back their regular meeting schedule. For December, they will meet only on the 4th and 18th, and they will not meet on January 1, 2019. Meetings are 4 – 6 p.m. at the Eastsound Fire Hall.