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Home My WebLink About04-2022 April 5 PHAB Minutes Deschutes County Health Services Public Health Advisory Board (PHAB) MINUTES MINUTES April 5, 2022 12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. via Zoom videoconferencing Facilitator Dave Huntley, Chair Staff Coordinator Tom Kuhn, Community Health Manager Scribe Ethan Laing Next Meeting May 3, 2022, Zoom Topic and Lead Introductions and Approval of March Meeting Minutes Minutes were approved and Staff were introduced Announcements and Unfinished Business Group Updates: - The American Rescue Funds are being implemented. Scholarships have gone out today for Community Health Workers. Sarah would like to report back in the future related to this. Health Heroes Award: Dave - We have 8 applications, they seem pretty well distributed amongst individuals and organizations. We’re trying to get more external nominations by getting the word out th that we’re doing this. The nomination process will stay open until April 11. We still need some people to help review the applications, send Tom or Dave an email if you’re interested. Likely the process will be applications will be sent to you to make your selection, and then the group will meet and have a multi-tier vote to determine the 4 winners. Tom has some established criteria around the nominations, so he can distribute – One of the main considerations is that a staff/organization doesn’t nominate themselves. Sarah Baron is willing to help. Pioneer Park will be the sight of the awards th on May 17 from noon to 1pm. We’ll have the pavilion set up for the event and will also be providing some food. This will not be a community-wide event unfortunately, but select groups will be invited such as the Commissioners, PHAB, winners, etc. Renee has done a great job to get the word out regarding the Health Heroes Award. Reproductive Health and STI Update – Anne Overview of what’s going on in the clinic – currently two clinical sites: One downtown Bend and one Downtown in Redmond. They have a variety of program areas: Family Planning (target population: teens, un/under-insured, vulnerable populations), STD & HIV (teens, high risk for “To promote and protect the health and safety of our community.” Updated 11/22/22 STIs), & GYN Services (Colposcopy, LEEP, Screenwise \[CDC/OHA\]). STD Services are critical at the moment as STDs are rising nation-wide. One of the problems we’re seeing is antibiotic resistant STIs. Priorities & Gaps includes optimization of clinic operations to ensure high quality care that is accessible to all who need us. We also are working to address key public health concerns. Last, we’re working on innovative ways to reach target populations, including outreach events. RH Clinical Services are impactful. Family Planning is the upstream answer, it changes lives. Trusted in the community – generational, LGBTQ, undocumented. Affordable – RH, OSPHL, sliding scale, we think about cost with every decision. Needed alternative to VIM, Mosaic, & Planned Parenthood. Anne has gone to some classes at COCC to lecture, we have lots of people in Public Health willing to train. We also have some Health Educators go into the High Schools and Middle Schools to teach evidence-based sex education. We’ll work to identify which schools allow our education, and try to get more participation from schools. Why is there a national uptick in STIs? There has been a change in attitude regarding sex, younger generations seem to be having an increase of multiple partners rather than a single partner. There are other factors to consider, such as dating apps and other cultural shifts. The RH clinic has been very careful about electronic records and confidentiality. RH currently has a team that reaches out to the houseless community and works and mainly focuses on disease investigation. Is RH getting enough funding to provide rapid testing for homeless camps? The teams are potentially realigning, but currently that team doesn’t serve under RH. Dave wanted to remind the PHAB members that part of our job is to help provide feedback to Tom regarding needs or discrepancies so that it can be directed to the appropriate Public Health resource. We’re all looking forward to how we can meet the needs of the community now. Sisters schools does allows the distribution of birth control. Redmond does not allow this. Sarah talked about a program she was involved in with a previous Community College utilizing peers and peer to peer education. Sarah would like to connect with Anne about the possibility to get this kind of program in Central Oregon. Dave would like to know if Anne has enough resources to catch up on the deferred care, or would a grant be helpful? Anne said the current nurse recruitment will help and will increase their bandwidth. Resources can be tight in Public Health, so right now we’re focused on where to put our resources. Both of our clinics are small, so we’re challenged on how to optimize our services. Staffing is most important at the moment. Homelessness Minimum Care Paper Update – Dave Dave shared with us the Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene Promotion (WASH) block diagram. Dave is trying to come up with a document that demonstrates the minimum care needed to prevent health-related issues for the houseless community. The current areas of focus are: hygiene promotion, water supply, excreta management, vector control, solid waste management, and disease outbreaks and healthcare setting. These are the major considerations for not only the houseless population, but also the general community. These areas of consideration need consistent management or it could negatively impact the health and wellness to our communities. The WASH document is a great reference for the minimum needs for our houseless population. We know that people target the unhoused for their possessions, and that there are some unhoused people who take other’s personal belongings. The safe storage of medications is incredibly important for ongoing and follow-up care. Dave to distribute the current version of the Minimum Care Advisory for Homeless document. The document does not define who needs to provide the resources, but simply to identify which resources are needed. The document starts with the preliminary core needs (taken from the WASH block diagram). Steve wanted to know if we think the Commissioners would be willing to support this project – Tom recommended we present the project to them so they don’t need to “To promote and protect the health and safety of our community.” Updated 11/22/22 publicly endorse the project. There will certainly be push-back within our community, but we could try to maximize our positive impact with a minimum ask. Steve thinks we would need to give them a watered down version with our recommendation with adoption/support. Dave clarified that the document is to identify minimum needs for individuals to prevent deterioration. Peter wonders if we can connect with the County Homeless Coordinator to help us navigate our presentation to the Commissioners. Dave would like to connect with Commissioner Chang regarding the best way to frame this project. Sarah would like to know if we have a timeline regarding this project? There is no official timeline, but Dave would like to have this presented by summer, especially considering the water needs. Sarah asked if we could also include the costs and pressure on the healthcare system. Dave thinks it’s possible, but it would slow the project down. We would be open to the inclusion to the project if PHAB is supportive. Dave invites anyone to reach out to him if you’d like to further discuss the project. Adjourn 1:19pm Action Items:  See if we can find any grants to help catch up the RH clinics Board Members Present: Tom Kuhn, Dave Huntley, Emily Cummins, Sarah Baron, Renee Wirth, Steve Strang, Rob Gross, Peter Boehm, Colleen Sinsky, Staff Members Present: Tom Kuhn, Ethan Laing Guests & Presenters: Anne Kilty, Jaclyn Alfaro, Lindsay Atagi PHAB – Public Health Advisory Board PH- Public Health “To promote and protect the health and safety of our community.” Updated 11/22/22