Elko community health center introduces staff

Sep. 24—ELKO — Elko will soon have a new community health center: a 30,000-square-foot facility in the East End Mall.

The west end of the mall is being renovated with aspirations for an opening by year's end, and some of the staff members were recently introduced to the public.

Jesica Ford, an Elko-based nurse and recipient of the nationally recognized DAISY Award and an Elko Daily Free Press Heart of Health Care award, is chief nursing officer for Elko CHC. She will be overseeing all of the clinical and business office staff.

"In addition to that, I will also oversee the community health foundation on the local level," she said. "I will be the supervising person on the ground here."

A community forum introducing the facility and some of its members was held in August.

"The event was well attended and our physicians were well received," Ford said.

The facility will offer cardiology, podiatry, spinal care, orthopedics, hand surgery, dentistry, physical medicine, general surgery, otolaryngology and ophthalmology, according to Ford.

The health campus is being developed and operated by Community Health Development Partners, according to Sarah Carroll, vice president of marketing and communications. She said the company aims to provide quality, affordable healthcare to the places and people that need it most.

CHDP focuses on increasing access to specialty medical care in rural, medically underserved communities.

Dr. John Gull will serve as Medical Director for the facility. Dr. Shane Draper, Dr. Quinn Lindstrom, Dr. Andrew Geisler, Dr. James Pappas and Dr. Erik Smith intend to practice at Elko CHC in their respective fields of otolaryngology, podiatry, physical management/pain management, orthopedics and sports medicine and pediatric dentistry.

"In addition to the specialty care provided by the physicians mentioned, Elko CHC is expected to offer specialty medical practices such as cardiology, gastroenterology and ophthalmology," Carrol wrote.

The remaining physicians who will practice at the 17-bed ambulatory surgery center will be announced soon, along with a variety of open staff positions.

Dr. Claudio Bonometti gave a talk on atrial fibrillation and cryoablation as a treatment.

Ford talked about the Community Health Development Foundation, a sister partner to Community Health Development Partners.

"We are creating a patient referral network that will help facilitate social determinants of health referrals throughout our community," Ford said. "The network lets health care providers, community groups and even patients themselves to create a needs referral.

"The network is powered by a technology platform called NowPow that has implemented these networks all over the country and allows users to interact with the system using a secure website, app, mobile device or even text messaging. CHDF will have a patient navigator who will receive these referrals and make sure the referrals are closed and the patient's needs are met. The navigator will also be available to the community for other health needs. Both the software licenses and the patient navigator's services will be provided to the community free of charge."

"When we get the patient navigator up and running, we will do some sort of community event and announcement so people can come and learn all about the foundation and get an idea of what we will offer."

"We are creating a community advisory group that will help us better understand community needs and will help shape our future programming," Ford said. "The community group will help us determine which classes to offer, how and when to offer them, and how to best present our offerings to the community."

"While or classes will be constantly changing based on community input, we plan to offer evidence-based health education classes that will be free to the community. This fall we will offer a heart healthy eating class that will be co-led by a local nutritionist and a local chef. Together they will teach the hows and whys of healthy eating over a six-session hands-on course. We also plan to offer diabetes prevention and management classes, alternative to opioids classes, and possible fecal immunochemical screening test events for early colorectal cancer detection."

Ford is a big fan of the Great Basin College nursing program and she is moving forward to create a partnership where GBC nursing and paramedic students can do their clinicals at the community health center.

"I feel like they (GBC) are such a blessing to this community," Ford said. "It is such a wonderful opportunity and I don't think some people realize what a gift that is to have something so close that is so accessible. In any bigger town you would be waiting forever just to get into a community college nursing program. We are seeing what we can do to help them provide the clinical hours that they need."

In addition to the ambulatory surgery center, the Elko CHC campus will include offices for physicians; a community space for CHDP's partner nonprofit, Community Health Development Foundation; and a medical imaging center operated by High Desert Imaging.

Ford says she is working on bringing other health care professionals to the area that the community desperately needs.

"I am working nonstop to get any potential service or provider here that I can," she said. "Good things are coming."

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