Fiscal Year 2025 Expanded Hours. - Project Title: Expanding Access in Wallowa County Applicant Name: Winding Waters Medical Clinic Applicant Address: 603 Medical Pkwy, Enterprise, OR 97828-5124 Project Director: Nicolas Powers Contact Numbers: 541-426-4502 (office), 541-426-6403 (fax) E-mail: nic@windingwaters.org Website: www.windingwaters.org Funds Requested: $500,000 per year for the two-year project period Winding Waters is requesting $500,000 in federal funding to expand clinical hours at three in-scope sites across Wallowa County, Oregon. If awarded, this funding will expand comprehensive whole-person and whole-family medical, dental, mental health, pharmacy, and complementary and alternative care to the most vulnerable people in our frontier service area. Winding Waters is a patient-centered primary care home that builds and maintains long-term healing relationships with people in frontier Wallowa County. The County spans 3,152 square miles with a population of only 7,659 residents – that’s 2.4 people per square mile. The US Census Bureau's 2020 American Community Survey estimated that more than 30% of the residents of Wallowa County live below 200% of the Federal Poverty Level. This vulnerable population faces numerous barriers to achieving lifelong health, including chronic disease and disability, low screening and immunization rates, high health risk behaviors, pervasive poverty, limited social services and transportation resources, and significant geographic and social isolation. In completing the proposed project, Winding Waters will: • Expand clinical hours at three of the health center’s four in-scope clinical sites, adding a total of twenty additional hours of access per week, including Saturday medical and pharmacy hours. • Address health disparities among current patients and other residents in the service area by improving the accessibility of health center services including a wide range of medical, mental health, dental, pharmacy, physical therapy, and complementary and alternative care options. • Ensure our team’s cultural and clinical competence to meet the diverse needs of our community through hiring practices, training techniques, multidisciplinary teams, and multimodal community engagement efforts. • Mitigate scheduling barriers that impede patients’ access to care during current operating hours,considering patients’ nontraditional work schedules, lack of sick leave, and childcare needs, through expansion of same-day and walk-in appointment availability. • Overcome other barriers to care, such as transportation issues, language assistance, and the need for non-clinical services that support access to healthcare and improved health outcomes, through expanded telehealth access, always-available language interpretation, and care navigation supports provided by traditional health workers. • Prioritize workforce well-being and safety to ensure sustainable and high-quality care delivery by ensuring adequate staffing, flexible work schedules, generous paid time off, clear career pathways, and available engaged leadership. • Establish new partnerships and enhance existing partnerships to support referring patients who can benefit from increased hours of operation. Through this multifaceted, team-based, community-centric approach, this project will significantly enhance access to comprehensive health services for the most vulnerable residents of frontier Wallowa County.
