Lots Happening at Waitsburg Clinic

WAITSBURG - Cheryl Skiffington, manager of Columbia County Health Systems Dayton and Waits­burg Clinics, spoke at the March 18 Commercial Club Meeting to give an update on the Waitsburg Clinic.

Providers at the Waits­burg Clinic include Dr. Kyle Terry and nurse prac­titioners Dawn Meicher and Kortney Killgore-Smith. Terry - also Chief-of-Staff at Dayton General Hospital - attended medical school in Utah and completed his internship and residency at the Kaiser Foundation in California. He ran a private practice in California be­fore moving to Waitsburg in 2011.

Meicher is from south­ern California, where she worked as an LPN/RN. She became a nurse practitioner in Walla Walla and began working in Waitsburg in 2008.

Killgore-Smith received her certification from Idaho State University and was employed as an emergency room nurse prior to join­ing the Waitsburg team in October.

Skiffington spoke about the success of the Co­lumbia

County Wellness Project - a program to get the community, schools and business involved in wellness. The program fo­cuses on a different health issue each month. So far, the project has addressed diabetes, tobacco cessa­tion, heart health and drug abuse.

April will focus on al­cohol abuse and May will center on women's health issues. A Women's Health Show featuring female speakers is planned for May 17 at the Blue Moun­tain Station in Dayton. Summer months will be geared to healthy garden­ing and nutrition, August will highlight immuniza­tions, and men's health will be the focus for October.

Skiffington said they would love to get the schools involved, but has had limited success in Waitsburg. She said the group is looking for a Waitsburg representative to join the committee that meets for an hour, every second Tuesday. "We'd love to have your input," she said.

Skiffington spoke about the Partnership for Success Grant that Blue Mountain Counseling recently re­ceived, which allows sev­eral drug lockboxes to be placed throughout Dayton. While Walla Walla County does not have a similar program, Skiffington said that Waitsburg residents are welcome to anonymously leave drugs - prescription or otherwise -- in the Day­ton drop boxes that will be located at the Dayton Gen­eral Hospital pharmacy, Elk Drug and the Sheriff's Office.

Since it is outside Co­lumbia County, the Waits­burg Clinic cannot be listed as an official drop loca­tion. However, Skiffing­ton spoke with Colum­bia

County Sheriff Rocky Miller who said their main goal is to get drugs off the street and that they would be happy to come to Waits­burg to pick them up.

"I can't make the clinic sound like an official drop- off location, but if you do drop them there, they will be taken away," said Skiff­ington.

Lastly, she spoke about the new Patient-Centered Medical Home Program that both the Waitsburg and Dayton clinics are part of. The program is free through the Washington Healthcare Improvement Network and provides a tremendous amount of counseling, according to Skiffington.

"It is a way of looking at a person through their whole medical process," she said. "For example, if you come in and are dia­betic, there are treatments that go with that - eye ex­ams, foot exams, etc. There are nine different processes that should take place. This is a way for the clinic to manage that for patients and see that they get all the necessary treatment."

The clinics were re­quired to choose three chronic illnesses to focus on. Based on what they see in practice, they chose: diabetes, chronic pain, and INR (patients on antico­agulants). They were also required to focus on three preventative measures and chose: tobacco, mammog­raphy and immunization.

The program is just get­ting started, but the clinics began last month by focus­ing on pneumonia vaccina­tions - currently recom­mended for anyone over age 65. Clinic staff had to use three different systems to identify all patients over 65 who had not previously been vaccinated. Skiffing­ton anticipates it will take three years to address all three chronic illnesses and preventative measures.

"It's a big job, but an im­portant job and we're com­mitted to doing it," she said.