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Grant funds from the State Land and Investment Board put momentum behind expansion of community health center facilities in Powell.
“We are about 2.6 million steps closer to our new …
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Grant funds from the State Land and Investment Board put momentum behind expansion of community health center facilities in Powell.
“We are about 2.6 million steps closer to our new building,” said Colette Mild, vice president of business operations and finance for One Health, formerly Heritage Health Center of Powell. That was her enthusiastic response to a SLIB grant of $2,648,656 approved in Cheyenne on Thursday for remodeling the former Fitch building at 1201 Seventh St. into an expanded clinic site for One Health.
The State Land and Investment Board is comprised of the state’s five top elected officials, chaired by Gov. Mark Gordon. At the Dec. 15 grant hearing, they were considering requests for the state’s allocation of Health and Human Services capital construction funds under the American Rescue Plan Act.
One Health is presently in the architectural design phase to adapt the former Fitch office building into a health care clinic. The community health center had submitted a grant request to SLIB totaling $4,148,656.
The SLIB board at first
proposed to reduce the grant request by $2 million and award One Health $2,148,65. But after hearing about One Health’s extensive use of telemedicine to deliver services to northern Big Horn Basin residents, particularly during the pandemic, an amendment was approved to add $500,000 to the grant for a total of $2,648,656.
Dr. Juanita Sapp, the first physician provider at then Heritage Health Center, is now a member of the board of directors of One Health which operates community health centers in Wyoming and Montana. She appeared at the SLIB hearing to support the One Health application, describing growth since the opening of HHC seven years ago. From three employees in 2015, the clinic now has 28 employees and logs 9,000 patient visits a year.
Colette Mild testified by video conferencing, stressing the value of telemedicine, “which enables us to see patients throughout the Basin in their homes.”
One Health purchased the former Fitch building in late March to provide expanded floor space for its clinic. The Fitch building has about 11,000 square feet of usable space, while present clinic operations total about 3,300 square feet in three adjacent buildings on Powell’s main street.
