Western Sierra
Medical Clinic Wins National Health Service Corps Award
of Excellence
Cradle-to-grave
care is how Frank J. Lang, Family Nurse Practitioner and
Executive Director of the Western Sierra Medical Clinic,
describes the gamut of services his medical center offers.
A long-time partner of the National Health Service Corps,
Lang, along with his wife Bette Jo, have been operating
and managing the clinic for 29 years. In fact, Frank is
an original NHSC Volunteer. Together, he, Bette Jo and
11 full-time employees serve as the only medical provider
and dental provider in western Sierra County, California
— an area of more than 500 square miles.
A
24-hour, seven-day a week facility, Western Sierra Medical
Clinic (WSMC) provides 5,000 medical and 2,000 dental patient
encounters annually, and more than 80 percent of the residents
use the medical clinic as their primary source of medical
care. The clinic has served as a model for providing health
care in a frontier environment, and due to the limited public
health services available, WSMC provides the majority of
health screenings, immunizations and health education programs.
Recently, WSMC was selected as a site visit for the National
Health Policy Forum to demonstrate the model it employs.
“Our
biggest value in the community is that we provide 24-hour
care in an area that has no emergency medical or other medical
care available. It’s a tremendous challenge. I feel that
Western Sierra illustrates the basic concepts of what the
Corps is all about, and I’m proud of that.”
More
than 50 percent of the clinics patients are over the age
of 55, so the team at WSMC provides substantial chronic
disease management, home visits to the elderly, preventive
screenings, immunizations, medication evaluations…even a
hospice program. Lang said, “We connect with people in
the significant elements of their lives as they move through
life with their families and parents.”
The
disease management programs have been a great success.
Very few patients end up hospitalized for their chronic
problems. However, Lang contributed some of the programs’
success to the “fishbowl” environment. “A small community
allows for a little better penetration in monitoring people.”
But
that’s just one sector of patients the clinic serves. The
scope of practice in an area like western Sierra County
is highly evolved, independent and comprehensive. The clinic
utilizes high speed internet as well as an Electronic Medical
Record in addition to Telemedicine. It requires providers
to be highly skilled, multi-taskers who are cross-trained
in several areas. After all, most of the clinic’s service
area is national forest — an outdoor enthusiast’s and Mountain
Bikers haven — so the clinic sees an abundance of tourists
with orthopaedic injuries.
Staff
members at WSMC provide Emergency Medical Technician training
and supervision to the fire department, ambulance and rescue
agencies. Partnerships with law enforcement, schools, county
government and community service and senior care organizations
reflect the coordinated effort to maintain the availability
of 24-hour medical care to western Sierra County. Lang
summarized, “We will continue to develop the resources necessary
to maintain these services and develop an infrastructure
that will ensure the availability of quality health care
services in this area.”
Learn about other
NHSC success stories.