Last year, following the tumultuous departure of its CEO and Medical Director, Sunshine Community Health Center’s new leadership team took on the operation of the organization’s three clinics. KTNA’s Phillip Manning spoke with Interim CEO Randall Kowalke and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Paul Forman about how things are going.
Sunshine Community Health Center, like all healthcare organizations, has had to grapple with the constantly changing landscape of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, its current administrative and medical leaders are working to restructure the organization to better care for the different communities it serves.
Part of that restructuring involves having a northern and southern subdivision of Sunshine. The “Clinic North” area would cover Talkeetna and Willow, as Sunshine has for years. “Clinic South” deals primarily with the recently added facility in Wasilla. Interim Sunshine CEO Randall Kowalke says a director for the southern area has not yet been hired, but there have been discussions with a candidate for the role.
At the same time, Kowalke has said since his appointment as Interim CEO that he does not intend to stay long-term. Sunshine is taking steps, now, to begin the search for a permanent chief executive, though Kowalke says it’s still in a very early phase.
“I think we’re at the beginning of the beginning….The board, to my knowledge is going to make a decision to do an internal search or have an external third party do this.”
Staffing in general is also a struggle for Sunshine, as it is for many medical facilities during COVID-19. Kowalke says hiring challenges are present at every level.
“We’re still having difficulty, like most of the world in the medical community, of getting qualified people hired—physician’s assistants and that type of thing.”
Added to the difficulty of bringing in new staff is the challenge of burnout among existing staff. Medical professionals across the country have been leaving their jobs in large numbers due to the stress of the pandemic. Medical Director Dr. Paul Forman says Sunshine’s own behavioral health team is working to ease some of that burnout with funding from the Mat-Su Health Foundation.
“Monthly, we’re having a sort of clinic-wide support session. So there’s some work on measuring your burnout and skill development on how to manage your own burnout, how to manage your own anxiety, how to manage all the issues with being overworked and under-appreciated. It’s a huge challenge in all of the medical world right now, whether you’re in the hospitals or the clinics.”
Forman acknowledges that staffing shortages affect how Sunshine provides care both in and out of the clinics. At the same time, one of the stated goals in opening the Wasilla clinic was to bring access to different specialties to the Northern Susitna Valley. Forman says at the end of this month, Sunshine will begin providing one of those new options.
“Dr. Krozel does obstetrics in Wasilla, and we want to extend her services to the other sites. So starting at the end of this month, she’s going to be coming to Talkeetna once a month to provide prenatal care.”
My conversation with Randall Kowalke and Dr. Paul Forman also covered some of the other challenges the community and Sunshine are facing due to COVID-19. We’ll bring you that story, soon.
