INSIDE
2004 In Review
Aydon Wellness Clinic

By Virginia Lester,RN,MSN,ARNP

The Point Roberts Aydon Wellness Clinic has been in operation for one and one-half years. I think of this as a clinic by the people and for the people of Point Roberts.

Its history has been related many times over; however, it is a great story that one person, Ed Aydon, was so determined to have some type of health care in the community that he was able to rally the community around aluminum can collection to provide seed money for the idea of a clinic. Many other community leaders were drawn to this idea and we now have the facility.

Since the clinic opened, we have generated 571 patient charts, 1,536 patient visits and more than 2,500 services for patients. These numbers represent office visits with the nurse practitioner, psychologist or relief physician, special procedures, laboratory tests, both on-site and referral tests, home visits, and medications ordered from the pharmacy for patients.

These figures represent many dollars and time saved by residents who would need to travel to Bellingham for care, to have a lab test done or pick up a prescription. Being a registered patient of the clinic does not require the patient to change from their own established provider but allows immediate care. Information is then available through the electronic health record system for the primary provider to access and support continuity of care. Patients can also be referred directly to specialists for care as needed.

The clinic has sponsored four health forums for public education: diabetes, cardiology, mental health and health insurance information. A health promotion group was held weekly to inform and support preventative health interventions. This group took a hiatus during the summer months and will emerge under a different name “Nutrition Plus.”

The first meeting will be held Tuesday, January 18, from 7 – 8 p.m., at the community center. All residents of Point Roberts are invited to attend.

The grant that paid for our first years will end April 30, 2005. The purpose of the grant is to provide the start-up funding with the caveat that the “community” would be able to secure permanent funding sources to support the clinic operations. This is necessary because the patient population is not large enough to support a free standing clinic.
Again, the community leaders have been hard at work determining the most appropriate manner to support continued clinic operations. They have proposed a public hospital district to be determined at a February 8, 2005 election. The clinic has been able to obtain a very limited number of doses of influenza vaccine for children six months to five years of age, people over the ages of 60 or any person with a chronic illness. We also have the nasal vaccine available for healthy people ages five to 49 years. The department of health is urging all citizens to be immunized.

Please call and make an appointment to have your immunization if you have not had the opportunity to do so.

Happy holidays to all.