Community group pushing for health center inside BHS.
In January, Bainbridge Youth Services relocated its teen counseling offices from the Commodore Center to a space in Bainbridge High School’s 100 Building, just up the hill.
The move was small. Its result was immediate.
“We’ve been seeing more students here in a day than we’d see in a week in the Commodore Center,” Bainbridge Youth Services Executive Director Lori Midthun said.
Why the spike in traffic? When it comes to teens, Midthun said, “Proximity is everything.”
That lesson is one that a task force of parents and educators – now partnered with Virginaia Mason and BYS – are hoping to apply to health care, with a plan to create a teen clinic inside the 100 Building.
For students whose parents sign a waiver, the clinic would provide a quick stop for basic health care, including sports physicals, cold and flu checkups, immunizations, prescriptions and reproductive services. BYS staff also would be on hand for mental health counseling. Services would be billed to insurance companies if applicable.
The key, said task force coordinator and island parent Cyndy Salisbury, is getting those services in a place that’s convenient and comfortable for teens to use.
“Our community is seen as being resource rich,” Salisbury said. “There’s a disconnect between that and whether the kids are actually accessing these sources.”
The task force, which has been pushing for the school-based clinic since 2006, presented a business plan to the Bainbridge Island School District board at its meeting last week. Clinic supporters hope to get formal approval from the board at its March 12, meeting so they can begin educating parents and community members about the planned facility.
School Board President Mary Curtis said the board is very interested in the partnership, but wants to know more about whether the clinic would be duplicating services already available, and hear more feedback from families, before moving the project forward.
At the earliest, Virginia Mason would set up the clinic over spring break, which begins in the last week of March.
According to the business plan, Virginia Mason will hire and train a .75 full-time nurse practitioner to staff the clinic, and will cover administrative costs and handle billing work. Bainbridge Youth Services counselors will provide mental health consultations.
The school district will be responsible only for space and utilities for the clinic. BHS nurse Heidi McKay will continue to work from her office in the new 200 Building.
According to Virginia Mason, the school-based clinic would not be a money-making endeavor. In fact, the Seattle-based nonprofit expects to lose more than $60,000 each school year by providing the service.
“We’re doing it because think it is the right thing to do for our community and the right thing to do to help kids in our community,” Virginia Mason Winslow Clinic Director Theresa Craw said.
It would be the first school-based clinic Virginia Mason has partnered with, but bringing primary care to campuses is a growing trend both nationally and regionally.
There are an estimated 1,800 school-based health centers nationwide. More than a dozen Seattle public schools are home to clinics, partnered with a variety of local health care providers.
Spectrum Community School, an alternative high school in the North Kitsap School District, opened a teen health center in 2003 in partnership with the Kitsap County Health District.
Traditionally, school-based clinics like Spectrum’s have opened school districts where many students lacked medical insurance and health care providers were difficult to reach.
Task force members admit that’s not the dynamic on Bainbridge, a relatively affluent community with a variety primary-care providers within walking distance of the high school. But they say demand for an in-school clinic is still high.
The Teen Healthy Youth Survey reported relatively high rates of alcohol and drug use, and depression, among BHS students. In the same survey, 20 percent of respondents said they would have wanted to make a confidential appointment with a health care provider but didn’t follow through.
The in-school clinic would offer confidential care, as allowed under state law, for birth control, pregnancy and substance-abuse issues.
As a school nurse, McKay develops care plans for students, gives minor treatments and makes referrals, but she’s not allowed to provide any medications, even aspirin. She said students are often too busy to seek out healthcare off campus, nurse McKay said.
“I see students a lot who are very involved with athletics and academics,” she said. “They get sick but they don’t have time to go see a doctor, so they just keep coming to school and spreading their germs to everyone else.”
McKay said she sees students on a weekly basis who are suffering from anxiety and depression, as well as a handful of girls each year who are pregnant or think they might be pregnant. Those students often don’t feel comfortable seeking help in the broader community.
After poring over plans for the clinic last week, school board members had plenty of questions.
A chief concern was whether the campus location would take clients from other primary care providers on the island.
“My immediate reaction is, ‘Oh my, we’re setting up a competitive model to other healthcare providers on the island who are not Virginia Mason,’” board member Patty Fielding said.
Task force members responded that the intent of the school-based clinic is not intended to be a “medical home” for students, but rather an access point to health care. Worth said the clinic would serve as a convenient stop for routine health needs, but students would be referred to their regular provider followup services.
Board members were concerned about how parents would be educated about the clinics services, especially when it comes to confidentiality and reproductive health. Task force members said they hadn’t completed plans for community outreach yet, but expect to host public forums of some kind.
After a thorough round of questioning, some school board members voiced support for the project, but with member John Taweresy absent, the board did not give a formal endorsement. The board will likely discuss the clinic again at its March 12 meeting.
