CEO Update: Raising Awareness – Rural Health Clinics
Each year CRHC celebrates Safety Net Clinic Week and 2021 is our 12th year! Safety Net Clinic Week is dedicated to promoting awareness of the unique challenges facing safety net providers. This year, CRHC partnered with the Colorado Association for School-Based Health Care, the Colorado Commission on Family Medicine, the Colorado Association of Family Medicine Residencies, and the Colorado Safety Net Collaborative. Together our organizations serve some of the state’s most vulnerable populations and we worked collaboratively to coordinate a week-long celebration that profiles vital Colorado Rural Health Clinics (RHCs), Community Safety Net Clinics (CSNCs), School-Based Health Centers (SBHCs), and Family Medicine Residency Clinics.
This year, CRHC produced two videos featuring a unique Colorado community and the challenges and solutions a RHC in these towns are facing; one in Holyoke and the other in Walden. The videos provide a glimpse inside each clinic. The Holyoke video focused on use of Remote Patient Monitoring and Chronic Care Management to meet the needs of their patients and the importance of making an investment in preventive care. The Walden video focused on Covid-19 vaccine, vaccination progress in the community and the persistent issue of mental health access.
Each day of the Safety Net Clinic Week (August 23rd-27th) featured events from different members of the safety net collaborative, culminating in a panel discussion on the last day which highlighted how policymakers can support the safety net, workforce, Covid-19 prevention and treatment including vaccines and masking.
Thank you to the communities of Walden and Holyoke for welcoming our staff to film, ask questions, and get to know your facilities. It truly is an honor to be invited into clinics across the state each year to work on this project. At CRHC, we believe that it is of the utmost importance to keep the concerns of rural at the forefront of conversation in the capital. That is what these videos are about, year in and year out.
To learn more about Rural Health Clinics visit CRHC’s website at https://coruralhealth.org/ or reach out to one of our team members.
