by John Dowd
After accepting their first patient on May 22 this year, staff at the new Bitterroot Health Stevensville Clinic are proud of what they are doing. According to Emily Holznagel, clinic supervisor, “We’ve been very graciously welcomed by the community.”
The new facility is a walk-in urgent care location that includes primary care, rehabilitation services, and an imaging lab. However, according to Senior Director of Regional Services, Pete Dunn, this is very different from an Emergency Room (ER). Dunn wanted to emphasize that the Stevensville facility is not an ER. For “emergent” services, patients need to make their way to an ER, which is equipped to perform surgeries and other emergency care needs. Not equipped for those kinds of services, the Stevensville facility will refer critical or threatened patients south. This is possible due to the relocating of the Stevensville Ambulance to the new facility. This can expedite care transportation options, and centralizes care for the north valley.
Differing from emergency services, Pete explained that urgent care refers to same-day doctor visits. Patients with Bitterroot Health as their provider can also schedule specialist’s visits including things like physical therapy and gastrology. Things like labs, imaging, rehabilitation and other services, can be provided even if Bitterroot Health is not a patient’s primary care provider. That includes lab tests, which eliminates the need for Bitterroot residents in the north valley to travel to Missoula or Hamilton.
The new facility also has a full rehabilitation team with all three disciplines, including physical, occupational and speech therapies. The Stevensville facility has a state-of-the-art therapy facility, with five-star-views of the mountains and a garage door that can be opened to let in fresh air during rehab.
Another point of pride for the staff are the staff themselves. “The staff are of this community,” said Holznagel. She and other employees are happy to be working in their own community. A staff member that Holznagel and Dunn wanted to highlight is Kelly Gregory, FNP. Living in Lolo, Gregory wanted to return to small town care, having worked for larger healthcare facilities like those in Missoula. Chasing that more personalized care made her a great fit for the Stevensville location. A family nurse practitioner, and member of the urgent care team, Gregory sees to and assesses acute needs of intake patients and helps get them the care they need. “I missed those personal connections,” explained Gregory. She got her start in a small town health care location, and since moved to work in Missoula. When she heard about the Stevensville clinic, she jumped at the chance.
When talking about Gregory and her patients, Holznagel said, “She always makes them feel like there’s all the time in the world.” Along with working for Bitterroot Health, Stevensville, Gregory is a nursing instructor for nursing students in Missoula. When she was asked about the feedback she had received from the public so far, Gregory said most people are “very thankful for the level of service, so close to home,” and “patients are very surprised by the number of services available here.”
Before constructing the Stevensville clinic, Bitterroot Health did a study to assess the needs of the valley. There were two that stood out. First was that the north valley was underserved for primary care and the second was that there was a need for closer urgent care for the areas between Stevensville and Lolo. Dunn talked about the questions they were asking themselves, including “In Ravalli County, how are we taking care of our community?”
After looking at those needs, and how to best serve the community, they came up with several required services including imaging. All these things meant that they needed a physical location to house those services. “We realized this valley is going to grow and we want to be able to meet those needs,” said Dunn.
Having a new facility created an opportunity to develop and pioneer a new model of care. The new Stevensville facility is postering that model, new to Bitterroot Health, prioritizing efficiency and personalized care. The model will bring services to patients, instead of running patients around the building to the services. Along with that, staff are also with patients from start to finish.
To help accomplish this new model, the new facility has 19 standardized exam rooms, cookie-cutter-copied from each other. That way, clinical staff, doctors and care practitioners can enter any room and provide the exact same level of care, without having to run between rooms for supplies. Each room is even equipped with its own printer, so there is very little reason a practitioner will ever need to leave patients alone for long.
The new system also employs what Holznagel referred to as a “fleet” of specialty carts. Each one is standardized and can provide for specific services and needs, depending on the cart. Even color coordinated, the fleet includes customized carts for urology, OB/GYN and other specialized services.
Holznagel explained that “it’s nice for the patients. This way, they don’t feel like they are getting sent all throughout the building.” Which is a good thing, because the Bitterroot Health, Stevensville building is like the clinic version of a house of mirrors. The Urgent and Primary Care Wing, which is referred to as the “Pod,” is identical to the Specialty Wing. Nearly all the rooms and hallways are the exact same in both wings, and one can easily become lost traversing the two. Holznagel explained that they considered this in the construction process, and the two wings even have their own art styles on the walls to help everyone orient which wing is which. Without the two art styles, of realistic photos and computerized scenery, it would be easy to get confused. “There was an incredible amount of thought put into everything,” said Holznagel.
According to Holznagel, there was so much thought put into everything that before design of the rooms even began, life-sized cardboard mock ups of the rooms were made, and care providers were asked to function in them to weed out any confusion or difficulties and to streamline every wall, door and corner.
Patients are put into their rooms without much need to leave, and are cycled efficiently in and out of wherever they need to be. According to Holznagel, this was done so “a patient’s care is not delayed due to needing a particular room.” This is accomplished primarily because almost any service the facility can provide can be performed in nearly any one of the 19 standardized exam rooms.
Bitterroot Health, Stevensville, is open every day of the year, including weekends and holidays. All, except for Christmas Day. Their walk-in facility is located on the west side of U.S. Highway 93, across the river from Stevensville just north of the Stevensville Junction; phone (406) 777-6002.