Published July 2005

CHC plans growth
to meet health-care needs

By Kimberly Hilden
SCBJ Assistant Editor

For those facing limited access to health care, Community Health Center of Snohomish County is a safety net for primary-care services, a net that is facing more and more pressure as demand for its services grows, an organization administrator said.

From 1994 to 2004, the private, nonprofit health-care provider has seen patient numbers increase by more than 300 percent, from 10,000 to 31,000, and its network of medical and dental clinics "continue to have a flood of new patients," Executive Director Ken Green said.

"At the Lynnwood clinic, 30 to 50 new patients are trying to get into the system a week," Green said, noting that 96 percent of CHC's patients have a household income below federal poverty guidelines and that 83 percent of patients are uninsured or participate in Medicaid.

To better serve the growing needs of the county, CHC in early 2004 finalized its first-ever comprehensive plan, with a focus on bolstering its infrastructure and expanding both its facilities and services.

Among the initiatives the organization has taken on is implementation of an electronic health record system, which will be active this fall and enable its clinicians to more easily access patient health information through terminals set up in every exam room, Green said.

CHC also has joined with five other community health centers in the region to form Practice Technology Services Organization of Washington. The venture, which enables the health-care providers to standardize data on a shared system, is expected to lead to development and application of best clinical practices and patient safety standards, Green said.

"It was incorporated last May, and the first community health center went live in January," Green said, noting that the six members, including four centers in Seattle, one in Bremerton and CHC of Snohomish County, serve a combined 150,000 patients throughout the Puget Sound region.

Beefing up technological infrastructure is one way to improve CHC's ability to provide needed medical and dental services, but it is just part of the equation. The other part — expanding its geographical reach and its health-care offerings — is now under consideration.

Currently, the organization operates three medical clinics, two dental clinics and two pharmacies in the Everett and Lynnwood area. The expansion plan now under consideration is three-pronged and includes:

• Relocating the medical clinic at 8609 Evergreen Way in Everett to a new, larger building that would be constructed on a 2-acre parcel of land off 112th Street SE in south Everett.
• Setting up another health-care clinic in south county, preferably in the Edmonds/Mountlake Terrace area.
• Setting up a health-care clinic in the Monroe area.

CHC has acquired the land needed for the new south Everett clinic, thanks in part to city of Everett Community Development Block Grant funds, Green said, adding that design plans should be completed during the summer, with construction of the facility expected to begin next spring.

"It will nearly double the size of the clinic, and we'll probably add dental offices and a pharmacy," he said. "We're talking with Sea Mar about bringing in mental health services."

CHC also has been in talks with Sea Mar — a community health center that operates mental, dental and behavior health clinics throughout Western Washington — about setting up a shared-services clinic model for the Monroe clinic, Green said.

"It's really exciting. We have a really good relationship with them. It's been very collaborative," he said.

A time line for the proposed Monroe site has not been set, but likely would follow establishment of the new south-county clinic, which Green said he would like to see up and running, possibly in leased space, by early 2006.

"We've been shoehorning money left and right" to pay for the projects, he said, noting that CHC also is looking at the issuing of low-interest bonds.

As for increasing its services, the organization has added a full-time behavior health specialist at each of its medical clinics and is in the process of hiring a nutritionist to serve the entire system. Talks also are under way with Bastyr University about the possibility of adding some naturopathic elements into the practices, Green said.

"Bastyr has been working with Community Health Centers of King County, so we have a model to work off of. We're about a year from making that a reality," said Green, who took the helm of CHC three years ago with a very firm goal in mind, that of offering top-notch, patient-focused care.

"We don't want to be the practice of last resort. We want to be the practice of choice," he said.

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