With over 1,400 miles of rural Colorado traveled and countless hours of footage collected, we are excited to release our annual Safety Net Clinic Week Community Showcase videos with our members and partners!

Safety Net Clinic week is devoted to educating the public and policy makers about vitally important rural healthcare clinics.  Historically, we would invite legislators to tour rural health clinics, but it was difficult to get rural legislators to tour facilities in their own districts, and practically impossible to get urban legislators to travel outside the I-25 corridor.   Since 2015, we have transitioned the project into a video series about rural Colorado communities and the issues facing their rural health clinics.  This year, we will be featuring Roaring Fork Family Practice in Carbondale, Southwest Health Systems in Cortez, and the Yuma Clinic in Yuma.

The videos provide viewers an opportunity to learn more about each clinic, the folks who work there, and the community they serve.  The videos also highlight critical issues the communities are facing, including access to mental health services, healthcare affordability and access in the Resort West, and maintaining financial sustainability in a time of political uncertainty.  The videos will be featured at a screening event on Tuesday, September 12, 2:00-3:30pm at our office in Aurora.  The videos will also be featured on our website and screened at the CRHC Annual Conference.

The event has been very successful in years past, and policymakers have been incredibly receptive and grateful for an authentic look at healthcare access in rural Colorado.   In fact, the event was so successful last year that I was invited to present the videos to the Joint Health Committee at the Capitol in January!  Storytelling and allowing our members to speak for themselves is an incredibly powerful and impactful advocacy tool, and we know that providing policymakers with a first-hand look at healthcare access in your community will inform their decisions about how to tackle these tough issues.

You can see other featured community videos and learn more about Safety Net Clinic week by visiting the SNCW page on our website. Also, if you are in the Denver area and would like to attend the screening, you can learn more about the event and RSVP here.