Ariana Ruiz, above right, has relied on La Clinica to care for her six children since before the first was born. Three of them are now attending Phoenix High School, one of three schools where La Clinica is opening a new center this school year.
Inside this newsletter
Care expands to three new schools | La Clinica adds training for health workers | Expansion coming to Acute Care Clinic | Mental health care provides path to wellness for many | Longtime internist will lead medical care
Thank you to the patients who shared their stories for this newsletter.
Three new schools gain La Clinica services
Ariana Ruiz has relied on La Clinica to care for her children since before they were born. The longtime La Clinica patient got prenatal care and now regularly turns to school-based health centers for kind and convenient care for her six kids, who range in age from 3 to 16.
They’ve all gotten service at the school-based health center at Phoenix Elementary School. Ariana appreciates that when they need routine care she can just come to the school for the appointment; she doesn’t have to pick them up to take them to a clinic somewhere else, then bring them back to school, a process that interrupts her work running her own housekeeping business.
“I have a lot of kids so this is easier,” she said with a smile.
She’s pleased to hear that La Clinica is opening a new school-based health center this year at Phoenix High School, where three of her children are students. La Clinica also plans new health centers at Ashland High School and Rogue Primary School, a new kindergarten through second grade school in Central Point.
All three of the new centers will open with behavioral health clinicians, specialists to help with insurance enrollment, and community health workers on staff. Nurses and medical providers will join the teams later.
La Clinica’s School-based Health Centers Director Elise Travertini noted that the pandemic and 2020 fires sent youth behavioral health needs soaring, so opening additional school health centers with therapists makes sense.
“The need for behavioral health is overwhelming right now, and what could be a better way to increase access than to have it on school grounds where youth are at?” she said.
Although Ariana and her family lost their home in the Almeda fire, she was committed to staying in Phoenix so her kids could remain in familiar schools with friends and community connections such as La Clinica.
“I feel safe,” she said about knowing that all the schools her kids attend will have a La Clinica health center. “I know that when I’m working if something happens, they can just go and La Clinica will help take care of it.”
Background photo: La Clinica's school-based centers, like this one at Phoenix Elementary, usually offer medical and behavioral health care. La Clinica also has an outreach dental service that visits 27 area schools.
19
The number of local schools where La Clinica has a health center on campus. This includes every school in the Central Point and Phoenix-Talent districts, Ashland High School, and Jackson, Oak Grove, and Washington elementary schools in Medford.
La Clinica adds training for health workers
An education and support service La Clinica launched in the spring offers a wide array of classes, groups, and workshops focused on improving the health of patients and other community members in a variety of areas. By next year, a major new workforce training program aimed at addressing a shortage of healthcare workers will become a key piece of it as well.
The Learning Well features curriculum in seven areas of health: body, mind, spirit, environment, heart, relationships, and career. In that last category, career, community members already can take classes on topics including life support, healthcare interpreter training, communication, and team building.
“That’s really just the tip of the iceberg of where we’re headed,” said Jillian Robinette, who directs The Learning Well. “We have developed an ambitious initiative to address our larger community’s shortage of healthcare workers and lack of diversity within the healthcare workforce, especially focusing on the Latino community.” Working alongside community partners already engaged in improving the community’s career opportunities, La Clinica plans to:
- Develop training and apprenticeship programs for dental, medical, and behavioral health assistants
- Expand internship, preceptorship, and residency programs for nurses, nurse practitioners, behavioral health clinicians, and dental assistants
- Develop a program to hire at La Clinica from this pool of trained professionals
- Create mentorship and coaching programs to help identify and engage La Clinica employees, patients, and community members in this training
The new service will complement other local initiatives, said Jim Fong, executive director of the nonprofit career-development agency Rogue Workforce Partnership.
La Clinica is "an exceptional partner in our work with all of the region’s healthcare providers to collaboratively build these new talent pipelines for job and career-seekers from all walks of life,” he said. “These partnership innovations will better serve our community for generations to come.”
Background photo: Sherrie Frank, lead facilitator for The Learning Well's workshops, talks during a session.
2,082
Vacancies locally in healthcare/social service jobs (2021 Oregon job vacancy survey)
More about The Learning Well
WinterSpring services return
Rogue Valley residents grieving a loss will once again have a support system to turn to as of fall. WinterSpring, a nonprofit Medford-based grief service for 30 years, is restarting as part of The Learning Well at La Clinica. Support groups for grieving people and grief facilitator training groups start in Medford in October and will continue year round. Program details and the full schedule are available at https://thelearningwell.org/winterspring.
Income-based discounts now apply to classes, groups, and workshops
The sliding scale that helps make care at La Clinica affordable by adjusting the cost to patients based on their income now applies to most workshops and classes at The Learning Well, the organization's new learning and support service. To access the discounts, participants provide income information and La Clinica compares that to federal poverty level guidelines to determine the discount. People at the lowest income levels can attend workshops for as low as $35 per day. To apply for the sliding scale discount, call 541-494-4796 or email thelearningwell@laclinicahealth.org or read more at https:thelearningwell.org/affordability.
Acute Care Clinic expansion coming
Fundraising is underway now for the $4.4 million project, set for 2024
La Clinica will expand the Acute Care Clinic born out of its COVID-19 pandemic response to improve access to affordable urgent care and keep the community ready to respond to emergencies such as infectious disease outbreaks.
To help even more people get quick access to care and avoid expensive visits to hospital emergency rooms, La Clinica will remodel the clinic at 616 Market St., Medford, to add x-ray capabilities, expanded lab services, and a drive-up pharmacy.
A new building next door will add exam rooms—some of them with ventilation designed to prevent airborne infections—triage rooms, and ultrasound imaging. It will have environmentally friendly and disaster-ready solar panels. The multi-building design will create a campus with the Wellness Center, which houses primary care and space for movement and cooking classes next door. The campus will provide space for people to connect with behavioral health services, including substance use treatment, and sign up for the Oregon Health Plan.
The organization aims to raise $4.4 million for the Acute Care Clinic expansion project. Construction would start next year, with the expanded clinic set to open in 2024.
The Acute Care Clinic grew out of a respiratory triage clinic La Clinica set up in March 2020 to evaluate people with COVID-19 symptoms safely away from other patients. The existing building was remodeled and opened in 2021. The new building will be built on a gravel lot that provides parking and accommodated long lines of people seeking outdoor COVID testing during disease surges in August 2021.
The campus approach will enable La Clinica to offer wellness-focused primary care alongside quick access to same-day appointments, especially for those with no insurance or low incomes. The Acute Care Clinic staff will work closely with a nearby shelter and resource center to provide multiple services for people without homes in one stop.
Background image: An artist's rendering shows the concept for a second building near La Clinica's Acute Care Clinic on Market Street in Medford. With the first clinic building, below, and the La Clinica Wellness Center across the parking lot, La Clinica envisions a healthcare campus offering both primary care and same-day services for the community. A $4.4 million fundraising campaign is underway now.
Clinic staff will provide screenings for Navigation Center
With state funding, the city of Medford and Rogue Retreat are developing a shelter and resource center to connect people without homes to services that will help them find stability and permanent housing. The Navigation Center in a former distribution warehouse and store at 685 and 691 Market St. will have 100 beds, showers, laundry, addiction and counseling services, and other help for people. Rogue Retreat’s Kelly Shelter plans to move into the center in fall of 2022. Eventually the Navigation Center will bring together a variety of services that are now scattered and require people to travel back and forth across town. La Clinica’s Acute Care Clinic will provide health screenings for people staying and getting services at the center.
Mental health care provides path to wellness for many
Vickie Renwick-Lourenzo, 62, had taken the anxiety-reducing medication lorazepam since her mid-20s. She felt confident that it had eased her way through panic attacks, the death of her father, a difficult divorce, and a move from California for a new start in Oregon in 2016. However, it is known to be less effective for patients older than 60 and to carry a risk of falls and memory loss, including dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
Her primary healthcare provider Matt Hogge at La Clinica’s Wellness Center noticed she wasn’t thriving the way he believed she could. He wanted to find a safer and more effective medicine for her, so he turned to Rosa Ruggiero, a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner who is leading La Clinica’s new and growing psychiatric services.
Together they worked with Vickie to map out a plan to transition off the medication she had long relied on. Vickie initially feared the change, but she knew and trusted the care she had always gotten from La Clinica.
Bringing on a team of psychiatric experts is one way La Clinica is responding to a growing need for behavioral health care in southern Oregon. Oregon has one of the nation’s highest rates of mental illness among youth and adults, reports the most recent State Health Improvement Plan. In Jackson County, where resources are limited, the wait for psychiatric care can stretch up to 18 months.
Rosa and her team, which includes a social worker and a child psychiatrist who will start work this fall, aim to provide faster help at health centers patients already feel comfortable visiting. The team can consult with primary care providers on psychiatric medication and provide patients with targeted therapy.
La Clinica also continues to offer other behavioral support. A team of five behavioral health clinicians—three of whom came onboard in the past year—connects with patients at primary care centers. Additional certified community health workers and qualified mental health associates support the effort. And La Clinica offers mental health services at all 19 of its school centers.
Finding psychiatric support at La Clinica has made a difference Vickie and Matt can both see. She is reducing her use of medication and coping with anxiety that no longer disrupts her life. Her dog Gizmo provides stress relief and support. She said her thinking is clearer. She doesn’t worry about memory loss. She’s working on herself and her relationships.
“She just looks happier,” Matt said.
Vickie agrees. And she’s grateful for her La Clinica team's support along the way.
“It’s been a journey, but I’m glad I did it,” she said. “I feel the best I’ve felt in a long time.”
Photos: Background, Vickie Renwick-Lourenzo arrives at La Clinica Wellness Center with her dog, Gizmo; below, she speaks with Matt Hogge, who provides her medical services and helps her coordinate with mental health staff; lower photo, she and Gizmo leave the appointment. Gizmo provides the kind of stress relief and support that doesn't come from a pill bottle.
Longtime internist will lead medical care
Medford internist Chris Alftine will bring decades of experience and work with the community to his role when he joins La Clinica this fall as its next chief medical officer.
“After 24 years of private practice, this seems a perfect opportunity for me to hopefully bring some benefit of my experience to an organization with such an important mission,” he said. “I look forward to working with a fantastic team and tackling the many challenges that now face us in medicine."
The new medical chief starts in October and will initially share the role with Justin Adams, who is leaving it to refocus his work on patients at La Clinica Wellness Center. The transition will be complete by early 2023.
Dr. Alftine was a founding partner and owner of Medford Medical Clinic in 2000, serving until that organization was integrated into Providence Medical Group in 2016 and continuing as a medical director and physician with Providence until 2021. He is a previous member of La Clinica’s board of directors.
In La Clinica's top medical leadership role, he will serve not at a single health center but around the organization, seeing patients wherever the need is greatest.
“I am thrilled to partner with Chris Alftine as our new medical leader,” said Tara Kirk, who leads La Clinica’s daily operations. “He has deep alignment with our mission, vision, and values. He is an incredibly gifted clinician and compassionate leader with a depth of experience that will support our organization’s core services and growth.”
Thank you for your support
Thank you to our friends who joined us on June 2 for our Thanks to You event. It was wonderful to turn the spotlight on you and your generous support of programs that help our community. As always, we appreciate you. Thank you!
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