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Show Two VA rural health care clinics to open Veternas Administration rural health care outreach clinics will be opened next month on a trial basis in Roosevelt and Richfield, by the Salt Lake City VA Medical Center. The two clinics,, based on different staffing models, will be demonstrators for development of four or more other rural outreach clinics in Utah, southeastern Idaho, northeastern Nevada or southwestern Wyoming, said Bob Lindsey Jr., director of the VA medical center. 'These will be triage clinics, not treatment centers. They'll do evaluation and referrals," i Lindsey stressed. "We surveyed a dozen potential sites and seriously considered six of them in the three-state area. The idea has been to get a feel for the community and then mold a model rural outreach clinic for that community." 1 The Salt Lake City VA Medical Center has a catchment area radiating roughly 300 miles from that city. "Accessibility, the need to travel a long way, has been the major problem for veterans in this region. They're spread out in many smaller communitites. With this new system of outreach clinics, we hope we will have the solution to the problem, "Lindsey added. Outside of Utah, sites already investigated include the Idaho Falls and Pocatello, Idaho, Elko, Nev., and Evanston, Rock Springs-Green River and Kemmerer, Wyo., areas. The experimental VA rural health clinics in Roosevelt and Richfield will open by next August 1, at the earliest. They will be evaluated on the basis of cost effectiveness, quality of care, patient satisfaction and community impact, Lindsey said. The two clinics will contract with local medical resources for lab and X-ray X-ray service, use computerized medical and administrative records, consult daily with the Salt Lake City VA Medical Center, and may provide van service to and from that medical center. Clinic services will cover health screening, home health care, wellness, followup of former inpatients, health-nutrition health-nutrition education and preparation for inpatient or outpatient care, including admissions to the Salt Lake City VA Medical Center. The Roosevelt clinic will be staffed by a group of local physicians on a part-time part-time basis, a full time VA physician's assistant, and a local nurse practitioner or secretary. It will be located near the Roosevelt Medical Clinic and Duchesne County Hospital. The clinic in Richfield will have a full-time VA physician from the VA medical center who will be present three days a week, a full-time VA nurse practitioner or physician's assistant who will reside in Richfield and a local secretary. It won't be close to a local hospital or other medical clinics. The outreach effort is part of a larger program involving the eight medical centers of Utah, Wyoming, Montana and Colorado in VA Medical District 24, which Lindsey heads. It includes Salt Lake City VA Medical Center monthly medical specialty clinics at the Grand Junction, Colo., and Fort Harrison, Mont., VA medical centers. And the recent opening of a trail outreach clinic in Torrington, Wyo., by the Cheyenne VA Medical-Regional Office Center. If successful, that could lead to similar Cheyenne outreach clinics in Casper and Laramie, Wyo., and Kimball, Neb. |