Coastal Family Health celebrates new facility |
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ASTORIA—There is something about a river that’s peaceful, even healing, whether it’s still a bubbling mountain stream or a miles-wide estuary.
“More often than not, when I go into an exam room, the patients will be looking out the window, watching the river, and they’ll be more relaxed,” says Robert Peterson, MD, Coastal Family’s medical director. The view is just one part of the complete redesign of Coastal Family Health. New physical space and a revamped organization have the clinic back on its feet after a troubling few years. Early struggles Coastal Family Health Center was chartered as a Federally Qualified Health Center in 2002 and opened its doors the following January. “Since the beginning, Coastal has really struggled with space issues,” says Jim Coffee, the clinic’s executive director. At about 2,500 square feet, the original home of Coastal Family Health was the size of many single family homes. Yet into that space was crammed six exam rooms. If a patient needed to stay for observation so the doctor could watch for adverse reactions to a new medication, for example, there was simply no room. The serious health problems of the former physician staff didn’t help either. “I wouldn’t say we were overprescribed, but we weren’t able to accommodate our patients because of the lack of physicians who could see patients on a regular basis,” Coffee says. It took up to eight months to get a new patient in for a first visit. And existing patients couldn’t be sure they’d be seen even if they did have an appointment. After numerous complaints about access, the state closed Clatsop County to new Oregon Health Plan enrollment.
Road to recovery Coastal Family Health is CareOregon’s only primary care provider in Clatsop County. Without adequate access, CareOregon also closed enrollment, but began working with Coastal Family Health on a corrective action plan. Chief Medical Director Margaret Rowland, MD, met with Coffee monthly. Consultant Bruce Amundson, MD, past president of the National Rural Health Association, also worked with Coffee and the medical team. “Through peer review, we identified problems that were adversely impacting access and care,” Dr. Rowland says. “We identified ways we could help the clinic be more successful and help them fix those problems so we could ensure success.” The result, she says, is that Coastal Family Health is doing “a spectacular job.” “Margie was really helpful in being a sounding board for me, and helping me craft how I would address these challenges,” Coffee says. “Bruce looked at how he would craft the management team with a new medical director coming on board. “Bruce is one of the loveliest people I ever had the opportunity to work with. He comes in and rips your box apart so you can’t think inside it anymore. He helped me learn to get out of Dr. Peterson’s way.” A key to recovery was the appointment of Dr. Peterson as medical director in October 2006. After 17 years as an internist with a second board certification in hematology and oncology, Dr. Peterson served eight years in the U.S. Air Force before coming to Coastal Family Health. In the Air Force, he’d broadened his practice into family care, and had gained experience as an administrator. There was a lot of work getting the clinic set up, Dr. Peterson says. “It wasn’t so much clinical business, but organizing the office chaos,” he says. “Once that was cleared away, we doubled the number of people we could see with the same number of providers.” The results have been dramatic. “We started opening up for new patients a little slowly,” Coffee says. “After six weeks, we had worked through the 500-patient waiting list. Now we’re seeing 10 new patients a week. Today if you are a new patient, we can see you in the time it takes us to get your records from your previous provider, about a week.”
The final piece of the puzzle was, of course, getting bigger, better space. In February 2007, Coastal’s board put new clinic space on a fast track. By April 2007, they were negotiating for property. March 2008 they moved into the new facility: Suite 210 of the Park Medical Building, 2055 Exchange St. On May 8, Coastal Family Health celebrated the opening. There are 6,500 square feet and 15 exam rooms. Now if a patient needs to wait after taking that new prescription, there will be an exam room for them that won’t delay other appointments. And six of the exam rooms have that million-dollar view that does so much for patients and staff. “Magnificent,” Coffee says. |
Wanted: primary care physicians for Northwest coastal community. Must be willing to breathe fresh air, enjoy watching the river. Must love working with challenging patients.“I’m just anxiously waiting for us to find another physician because we have the room and the clinic and the patients,” says Dr. Robert Peterson, medical director of Coastal Family Health Center in Astoria. The medical staff now includes Dr. Peterson and three Family Nurse Practitioners. They would like another physician to join them, but it’s a challenge to get doctors to come to a small town.
“When we get them here and talk with them, they see the growth and they see the staff and they like it,” he says. “But it is isolated from malls and the airport. They need to have a place where the whole family feels at home. That’s the big challenge.” The whole clinic team, including medical and administrative staff, faces the challenges of medicine in a Federally Qualified Health Center, which serves those who have needs but no ability to pay. “Our patients face unique challenges in medicine and social support,” says Jim Coffee, the clinic’s executive director. “We had a patient who was living in the woods. He didn’t even have a car to live in. He had no shoes and was a diabetic. The only shelter in the area was for women and children only, but we worked with them and they made an exception. “Every day, we’re out there trying to help.” |
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