Partner highlight: Free Clinic of SW Washington
Free Clinic of SW Washington operates Project Access Clark County in Southwest Washington. Since 2008, Project Access Clark County has enrolled 852 patients.
Project Access rounds out Free Clinic’s program portfolio; their medical program provides urgent care, vision care, health screenings and immunizations; the dental program includes urgent adult and children’s care and preventative care for children.
According to Free Clinic’s Executive Director Barbe West, “The partnership with Project Access NOW is very important. It allows for collaboration with the regional health systems and access to the Providence pharmacy benefit program.”
Coordinating care across the region is but one benefit of the collaboration. “Project Access NOW runs and oversees the program’s information system centrally, rather than each local program having to do it on their own. Their information and evaluation system support has been very helpful.”
The third major benefit, in Barbe West’s eyes, includes “learning from each other. Local programs and Project Access NOW meet regularly to share best practices and solutions to challenges.”
In addition to this regional partnership, Project Access Clark County has also established a relationship with all of the Project Access programs in Washington State.
Collaboration is nothing new for Barbe West. As Executive Director of Community Choices, she spent 7 years working on health advocacy and policy issues, which entailed significant coalition building. Prior to that, she was President of Kaiser Permanente Northwest and worked in that organization for 28 years.
Though Barbe has been with Free Clinic of SW Washington for just over a year, she has already seen the impact of the nonprofit’s services. “In policy work, change can take decades to take effect. At Free Clinic, I see immediate results of our work.”
Barbe enjoys the challenges of leading an organization and cultivating relationships with partners like Project Access NOW. “I’m constantly reminded you have to work on a partnership, it doesn’t come automatically.”
(August 2010)
