National Health Center Week is coming up Aug. 6 to 12 as an opportunity to highlight the commitment and passion of community health center staff, board members and supporters.
The National Association of Community Health Centers sponsors National Health Center Week to celebrate and increase awareness of America’s 1,400 community health centers.
The centers serve as the beacon of strength, service and care in their communities. This year’s National Health Center Week theme highlights the achievements and work being done at community health centers in every state and territory.
Amie Brunner, practice manager at Indiana Health Center of Jackson County, 120 St. Louis Ave., Seymour, said National Health Center Week is a time of the year where they get to celebrate their staff, patients and stakeholders.
Brunner said the special week always has a good theme, but this year’s theme is near and dear to their hearts.
“Our 2023 theme is ‘The Roadmap to a Stronger America,’ which is kind of nice because we’re spread out across Indiana, so it really hits home for us this year,” she said.
Brunner said the local IHC has a community involvement committee that meets every month, and members helped plan the local event.
“The committee consists of patients, myself, people from Indiana Health Centers, Schneck Medical Center and the Community Foundation,” she said. “So we talk about what happens at IHC and how we can better serve the community, what our needs are, what’s going well and what needs improvement.”
The committee has been in place for many years, and several members have been serving in the group since the beginning. It’s nice to have their experience, their memories and their input, she said.
Brunner said at the Seymour location next month, they will be giving away gas cards for qualifying patients.
“Also for Health Center Week, we have IHC goody bags to give away for patients, and the site will be open for tours between 1 and 2:30 p.m. that Tuesday and Thursday,” she said. “We will have root beer floats that we will be giving out on Wednesday for patient appreciation, too.”
Brunner said they will usually have a kids giveaway, such as a scooter and helmet or something fun.
IHC has never partnered with the Wayside Inn homeless shelter, so they reached out to them, and the staff is going to be collecting items for them during the special event week.
“We try to make it fun for our staff, so when they bring something in, they’ll receive a raffle ticket for prizes we’ll be giving away,” she said. “We appreciate our staff, so we’re having a lunch for them one day with Junkyard BBQ.”
The public tours will be led by Brunner and staff members Michelle Stone and Brittany Gibson.
The Community Health Center of Jackson County (now IHC of Jackson County) opened in 2004 in Seymour and incorporated dental services in 2006.
On April 14, 2022, IHC held an official ribbon cutting and grand opening celebration, and since then, the time has flown, Brunner said.
“Since then, we have picked up and are busy, we’ve had a provider leave and we’re adding a dentist that’s starting around the beginning of August,” she said. “We have a new doctor who is in orientation this week, so that’s exciting.”
She said they’ve had some ups and downs with staff, just like everybody else, and they’ve stayed around that mark of 30 to 35 employees.
“We’re currently at 35 and still have a couple of openings, and then we are already looking at expanding our front check-in area,” Brunner said. “My office used to be downstairs shared with the nurse manager, but we’re going to take that office out and make another check-in area there to hopefully speed up the process and make it more efficient.”
The center recently started Medications for Opioid Use Disorder treatment and has partnered with Schneck for that service.
“We have some providers who are willing to do that for anyone wanting to wean off of opioids,” she said. “The health center also has an unmonitored NaloxBox on the side of our building along St. Louis Avenue that contains free Narcan for anyone who needs it.”
When asked about expansion of the clinic in Seymour, Ann Lundy, president/CEO of Indiana Health Centers Inc., said they are exploring several options, including a teaching health center residency program or expanding the clinic with more focus on behavioral health.
Brunner said they are looking at a couple of things. One of them is partnering with Marian University for a residency program.
“Out of our 11 health centers, they are looking at some to see which site would be the best fit, and Seymour is being considered for one of those,” she said. “If Seymour got chosen, we’d have to have the space to facilitate that, and right now, all of our space is allocated for our medical, dental and behavioral health.”
The other thing is their behavioral health provider is booked pretty solid, and they’ve been considering adding another one. Currently, though, Brunner said they don’t have the space for an extra office.
Brunner looked back at the numbers from 2023, and from January to June, they have served almost 11,000 patients.
“We have had 10,912 encounters, and then I broke it down further into medical, dental and behavioral health,” she said. “Medical was 8,935, dental was 1,279 and behavioral health was 698 encounters.”
Indiana Health Center of Jackson County is always accepting new patients and will take anyone.
“We have our sliding fee scale for those people who are underinsured or have no insurance, so it will cost them less,” Brunner said. “But if you have commercial or private insurance, we’ll take them, too, but we’re here primarily for the population that needs us most.”
For information about Indiana Health Center of Jackson County, go to the indianahealthonline.org/our-locations/jackson-county.
National Health Center Week
When: Aug. 6 to 12; tours for the public from 1 to 2:30 p.m. Aug. 8 and 10
Where: Indiana Health Center of Jackson County, 120 St. Louis Ave., Seymour
What: Goody bags for patients all week and root beer floats on Aug. 9 for patient appreciation