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New Plans For Community Care Clinic
Written By: Luke Osteen | Issue: December 2023
The Community Care Clinic of Highlands-Cashiers is undertaking a dramatic expansion of its mission to serve local health needs.
The board of directors of the Community Care Clinic of Highlands-Cashiers, the area’s “free clinic” for those without insurance and those who are underserved, has adopted a new three year strategic plan following months of interviews, surveys, focus groups, and board retreats.
The plan calls for significant enhancements to the clinic’s operations
and services.
“The clinic’s strategic planning process, which included a great deal of discussion with many of our stakeholders, particularly with our patients and their families, has given us a better understanding of what we should be focused on,” says Board Chairman David Moore. “We need to expand our services, our service hours, referrals for secondary and tertiary care and provide more opportunities for healthcare education.
“We will require more team members and more community support to do all of these things, so this process will be transformational; it will impact the lives of the most vulnerable members of our communities. We are all very excited about our new vision.”
The clinic has been providing medical appointments two evenings each week for several years; the new plan calls for a gradual move to providing clinic hours, for walk ins and urgent care, most days of the week, according to Faviola Olvera, the clinic’s executive director. The clinic will hire a full-time nurse practitioner in order to accommodate the expanded clinic hours, in addition to the existing part time staff of nurse practitioners and other clinic staff members, volunteer physicians, and the new patient care coordinator.
A referral and financial assistance program for patients requiring secondary and tertiary care will be developed over the coming months.
The new plan also calls for more outreach to the communities served, and more health educational offerings, which could be offered along with its collaborative partners, including the International Friendship Center and the Counseling Center.
For more information about the Community Care Clinic’s strategic plan, and its future expanded hours and services, or to volunteer, contact Olvera at (828) 526-1991, or go to the clinic’s website, highlandscashiersclinic.org, to learn more or to make an online donation.
