PORT ORCHARD – The first meeting of the new group of local elected officials, community representatives and medical personnel will be held Wednesday afternoon to discuss holes in the structure of Kitsap’s healthcare system and discuss needs, problems and A difficult list of challenges was created.
The large group, brought together by Kitsap County Commissioner Rob Gelder and now set to meet every few months, will address a variety of regional and broader needs, such as the need for more staff and services. It started with a discussion across healthcare topics.
Dr. Gibb Morrow, Health Officer, Kitsap Public Health District, said: We left this to market forces in a market that didn’t fit into any of the market rules that most other markets use. ”
In December, the Health District launched a Request for Proposals aimed at finding consultants to survey Kitsap’s health care landscape, identify problems, and recommend fixes. Responses to that process are due Tuesday.
Mentioned Wednesday: Lack of maternity services, secular health care options, primary care, emergency care, and emergency room options, and the need for more care facilities, hospice care, and dialysis options. One topic that is gaining attention for us is the formation of public hospital districts. It’s a tax district that can be used to subsidize and operate various health care services, and Gelder hit the idea as one of his topics of conversation.
We would like to hear from you:Where is Kitsap County’s healthcare system inadequate?
Poulsbo Mayor Becky Erickson explained that the upcoming work is a decade-long process. “Fundraising is always important, but there are so many layers to it. We’re talking about labor shortages, we’re talking about reimbursement rates, we’re talking about regulatory barriers. , which is one of the reasons why research is so important and gives us a starting point.”
Bremerton Mayor Greg Wheeler said of the Respite Center being developed by Peninsula Community Health Services on Sixth Avenue in Bremerton: I will be discharged from the hospital in 2020,” he said. “It’s a gap and a need.”
Randy Hartman, Kaiser Permanente’s District Director of Operations for the Kitsap Peninsula, pointed to the difficulty of hiring doctors, pointing to a nationwide shortage of doctors.
“Some doctors are exhausted after work,” he said. “It is really the future that we are really looking at alternatives to advanced practice clinicians and other modes of patient care, leveraging teams and collaboration. You have a choice, so you have to try to compete on price points.
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Noting the complexities of navigating the world of independent health care provider reimbursement, Morrow said, “…Private equity firms are trying to buy specialty practices and ruin doctors and their productivity.” As people, we recognize that all this money is being sucked away. They become overworked, burn out, drop out, and retire early.”
Erickson said: However, the labor shortage still persists. We have a huge labor force problem right now and part of the labor shortage situation is because they have no place to live. ”
Chad Melton, Director of St. Michael Medical Center, pointed to the high cost of living in the community as a barrier to recruiting staff from other parts of the country.
He also pointed to the need for more openings in the educational medical program, with a surgical technician vacancy rate of about 100% at the facility. “We have only one school in the area, one in Tacoma, and we only get six to 10 applicants a year. We don’t have enough programs right now.”
Some at the conference noted a reduction in local medical services provided by the Navy.
Steve Katz, director of the Suquamish Tribal Clinic, said: I don’t want to accept It is also a real issue.”
Morrow pointed out that Kitsap is in a unique situation, saying it is grappling with the same problems that other parts of the country are grappling with. Historically and very importantly for Kitsap, as healthcare becomes more and more integrated, some of the ways things have played out locally are the Navy’s The medical presence has withdrawn to some extent. The pandemic is mixed and everything is a quagmire at the moment. ”
