Planfield Health Center shows off renovations, changes at open house
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Dr. John Matthew describes the features of a secure automated prescription dispensing unit at The Health Center in Plainfield during an open house for the recently renovated facility on Friday. Jeb Wallace-Brodeur/ Times Argus |
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By Mel Huff Times Argus Staff - Published: November 15, 2008
PLAINFIELD – Patients of The Health Center who used to thread their way through a packed waiting room to reach the front desk now have a very different welcome. They walk down a wood-paneled hall into an atrium in front of the registration area where sunshine falls through a skylight.
That's just one of the many changes, from more office space and dental care to drug prescriptions, that are coming to the facility on Route 2.
On Friday morning, The Health Center welcomed the community to its "Half-Open House," to show off the new addition that will more than double the clinic's space. In early September, the staff moved out of the original building (about 9,400 square feet) into the new wing (a little more than 14,000 square feet), so that renovations could be made to the 30-year-old structure.
A full open house will be held next spring to celebrate the completion of the project, which officially began in October 2007.
Before the expansion, The Health Center was providing care to 9,400 patients in a building that was designed to serve 1,200. The additional space allows The Health Center to add staff and expand its services. When the renovations are completed, The Health Center will have two "procedure rooms" for medical emergencies and 18 examination rooms.
While the staff celebrated with goose gumbo downstairs – Dr. Paul Davoren prepared it from a bird he shot out West – Dr. John Matthew showed a visitor the new half of the clinic.
The pharmacy holds what looks like a blue metal candy machine. In fact, it is the state's first Automated Dispensing Unit for prescriptions, a bullet-proof glass-and-steel machine filled with plastic pill bottles labeled with bar codes. It is part of a pilot project on remote dispensing.
Several months ago The Health Center and four other community health centers in northern Vermont formed a corporation to create the Community Health Pharmacy, a "central fill" drug store for their 55,000 patients.
If a patient comes to The Health Center with an acute condition like an ear infection and her doctor wants to start her on a drug immediately, the doctor can fax a prescription to the cen-tral pharmacy in Colchester. The pharmacist will send the doctor a label with a bar code which causes the machine to dispense a pill bottle with a matching bar code. If the patient needs a larger supply of the drug, the Colchester pharmacist will mail the rest of it to the patient by the next day.
By taking advantage of a federal wholesale pricing program, the member health centers can buy pharmaceuticals at lower prices, which they pass on to their patients. The program also allows the community health centers to charge patients who are at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty guidelines on a sliding scale. (The pharmacy can serve only patients of the five community health centers.)
Before the expansion, The Health Center had five dental operatories. Now it has nine, all newly equipped for left- or right-handed practitioners.
There is a statewide shortage of dentists, but Matthew plans to recruit experienced dentists who no longer want to run a practice to work two or three days a week. He has rented a house opposite The Health Center to provide dentists from out of town with a comfortable place to stay.
The house will also be used to house medical students who otherwise would have to commute to and from the University of Vermont. Because the center has more space, the staff will be able to teach as many as six students at a time instead of two or three. "We want to convince them to do rural medicine," Matthew said.
The house provides another benefit: Its carport will shelter a van to be used to bring patients without transportation to the clinic.
The Health Center will be getting a second community resources specialist (social worker) and will expand its counselors from three to five.
The expanded facility allows The Health Center to play a greater role in public health.
A conference room makes it possible to offer classes to the community. Classes start Nov. 17 and cover topics ranging from "Things to Remember to Avoid Forgetting" (dementia) and "Shaking the Habit" (sodium) to "What's Eating You?" (bites).
The addition includes a staff library and reading room, meeting rooms for the staff and, sitting on the lawn outside, a large, propane-powered generator that will keep the servers, telephones and dental chairs running when the electricity goes out.
Over the next year and a half, Matthew plans to survey every resident, whether they are patients or not, in what he calls "our clinical parish" – the six towns that make up The Health Center's core service area. The purpose, is "to better plan our role in community health, local emergencies, outreach and education," according to the survey itself.
The form includes questions about whether the resident has health, dental and drug insurance and whether, in case of an emergency, heavy snowstorm or power outage, he would be willing to check on neighbors who are ill or elderly.
The construction project has encountered a few "found conditions," Matthew said, and they have raised its cost from $3.7 million to about $3.9 million.
The Health Center is nearly three-quarters of the way toward meeting a challenge grant: If it raises $500,000 by March 2009, the Kresge Foundation will give it an additional $200,000. If The Heath Center raises less, it will get none of the incentive money.
A brochure for the capital campaign's multi-year giving program asks, "What can you get for 66 cents a day?" It invites people to pledge $1,200 spread over five years, or 66 cents a day.
"By taking $700,000 off the mortgage, we'll have less mortgage and more program," Matthew observed. "That could be one social worker for the next 20 years."
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