A discussion took place at the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly meeting on Tuesday, December 20th, to determine whether a new resolution would be accepted or denied.
The resolution (2023-082) is asking the Borough to express their support for a new Community Health Center in Seward. More specifically, a new clinic center.
Assembly member Brent Hibbert voiced some concerns about the possibility of a new building, especially a building that is going to be 42,000 square feet. When the building is put into perspective, it will be larger than the Walgreens in Soldotna, and the Best Western Hotel in Soldotna too. He does indicate that he wants to support the new health center, but would like more information as to how this would work.
“But when we put these numbers together and looking at the 2025 forecast, six open six days a week, 312 days, the total number of visits is 6468. It comes to 20.7 visits a day, but when you when you read down into this little bit farther total patients per year is 2587. That’s a year comes out to 8.3 patients a day,” said Hibbert.
The clinic is set to have nine exam rooms.
Assembly member Kelly Cooper agrees with Hibbert’s concerns in the number of patients coming in per day in comparison to the size of the building. The health center does want to focus on wellness rather than illness, but there are some other concerns to look into besides the size.
“We also have to remember that Seward no longer has an airport, the Providence portion of the healthcare in Seward continues to reduce not providing the care that is needed for the residents in Seward. And if someone needs urgent care, they will have to be sent by road to Providence in Anchorage,” said Cooper.
Assembly member Mike Tupper understand his fellow members concerns, but also explains that one of the big shifts in moving the healthcare system is tp move forward towards quality is a reduction in the focus on quantity. Part of the purpose of having a larger facility is to be able to focus on wellness, rather than being built for the sole purpose of sick care.
“So healthcare looks different for health care looks like keeping people at home and not coming to a doctor. There’s a lot of activity that can happen in a doctor’s office that isn’t an appointment that a patient has. So there’s a lot of chronic care management. There’s a lot of chronic disease, education, that means happen. There’s a lot of different models of ways that you can get information to patients or care to them in a way that doesn’t require that they get sick first and then come to see you,” said Tupper.
Craig Ambrosiani, the Executive Director for the Seward Community Health Center, first addressed Mr. Hibbert’s concerns in regards to the number of rooms examination rooms in the facility.
Ambrosiani says they typically have three providers three days a week. On Saturday’s, they only have one provider, which just started this past summer.
“You need three exam rooms to be efficient one exam room the patient has been the second exam room. The provider is seeing the patient and the third exam room and it’s being cleaned for the next patient. We typically have two and sometimes one exam room per provider which makes our appointment processing very slow. So we can increase our volumes by having the standard industry standard three exam rooms per provider, and you can see, we have in the drawings. We have nine main exam rooms. We have one exam room that is a special room off to the side that is accessed from the outside for COVID use or any other kind of pandemic so that we can do drive through testing and drive through administration of vaccinations or whatever. And then we have to procedure rooms so that we can bring in outside specialists to do certain procedure days at our clinic. Also if we grow enough to need four providers, then we can have three exam rooms for four providers,” said Ambrosiani.
The other big topic he addressed was wellness and behavioral health. According to Ambrosani, behavioral health visits have double in the past year. This health center would have behavioral heath care, wound care, preventative care, primary care, as well as helping homeless individuals get care.
“We’re trying to work with folks and improve their health and not have them come in just when they’re sick. We want them to come in when they’re well so we can help them teach them how to be healthier. So that’s why we have a demonstration kitchen on the second floor, so we can teach folks how to cook better, how to prepare food better, how to raise their kids with appropriate meals, and then we have other space that’s been talked about as far as education for our community educational things such as nutritional education, digital equity, youth Resource Center, and even teaching kids about vaping. I mean, I know we do it in the schools, but I don’t think it hurts to do it in your medical clinic either,” said Ambrosani.
After a unanimous vote, the resolution passed with all members in favor.
