PORT TOWNSEND — Health services officials from Jefferson, Clallam and Kitsap counties are discussing building a regional coalition to increase health care efficiency.
“We want to bring together all the people and agencies involved in medical care, mental health and substance-abuse treatment,” said Dr. Tom Locke, the medical officer for Jefferson and Clallam Counties, after a meeting Friday.
“This will be accomplished by bringing together all of the stakeholders — the different people who do the same thing — so they can work with each other,” he added.
About 40 people, including health officers from the three counties, attended the meeting at Fort Worden State Park as the first step to forming the coalition that is to be called the Olympic Community of Health.
A lot of the details are yet to be determined, such as cost of services and what can be streamlined, but opening a dialogue is the first step toward building a partnership, according to Locke.
Locke said the impetus for the coalition comes from the state, which has mandated the creation of Accountable Community of Health districts as a resource-sharing measure.
Locke said that the state’s initial plan was to create 10-county districts, a move that he said would be counter-productive.
“In order for this to work, it will take coordination between many different agencies that aren’t used to working together, like the police and the schools,” Locke said.
“To attempt this over a 10-county area would be too complicated.”
Bringing Kitsap, Clallam and Jefferson counties together makes sense, he said, since the three are already working together to some extent.
“It didn’t make sense for us to be grouped with Olympia, because no one up here goes to Olympia for health care,” Locke said.
Seattle health care consultant Dale Jarvis, who facilitated the four-hour meeting, said he was energized by the group’s reaction — which isn’t always the case.
“The idea of these alliances is to move from an isolated impact to a collective impact,” Jarvis said.
“In an isolated situation, a funder gives money to one agency to do one thing and to another to do something else.
“In a collective impact situation, the funder creates a more complete system of care that better meets people’s needs.”
As an example, Jarvis referred to a health care system in Bend, Ore., that analyzed treatment patterns.
“There were people who were visiting the emergency room every week, so they looked for ways to prevent those frequent visits,” he said.
Change will be difficult, participants said.
“The system will be hard to change because we are on a fee-for-service trajectory,” said Jean Baldwin, Jefferson County Public Health Department director.
Locke agreed, saying that “we are trying to change the system so it is focused more toward wellness.
“Right now, it’s all about how many services you can sell.”
A certain amount of coordination and leverage of services already exists among counties, according to Iva Burks, Clallam County Health and Human Services director.
“We all work together, and our jobs aren’t the same,” Burks said.
“Each of the public health departments have different services,” she added.
“Jefferson County does a lot with family planning which we don’t offer while we are bigger in human services.
“We already draw from each other.”
Creating the Olympic Community of Health will require creating an additional level of bureaucracy to secure funding and connect services, but supporters of the idea say that existing staff can perform many of those functions within their current jobs.
It will cost money, but Locke expects some funds to be available for that purpose through a $94 million federal grant to the state to administer the programs.
While Burks expects that it will take some time, “more than six months” to coordinate the programs, Jarvis thinks that success will come from a more seat-of-the-pants process.
“You can get started right away,” he said.
“All an agency needs to do is pick a project, secure the funding and do it on their own.
“You don’t need to spend three years planning this.”
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
