While it took some time this month to peek in the rearview mirror in celebration of its 20th year in operation, Valley View Health Center has its eyes firmly planted on the road ahead as it charts the path forward.
The focus, CEO Gaelon Spradley said Thursday, is needed as the company looks to expand its footprint and operate in underserved communities throughout Southwest Washington.
Earlier this month, the company celebrated two decades of medical, dental, behavioral health care and pharmacy services in Lewis, Pacific and Thurston counties with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house at the Chehalis clinic.
“It’s been an interesting 20 years,” Spradley said. “I’ve been with the organization for just five of those years. And in the last five years, we’ve tried to prepare ourselves for the next stage of growth, trying to offer more services to homeless populations to very urban populations.”
What began as a single clinic in 2004, Valley View has since grown to 15. Valley View is a federally qualified community health center that offers a wide range of services, one of 26 across Washington.
The status, Spradley said, offers a “bundle” of unique opportunities, including access to student loan repayment programs for providers and pharmaceutical discounts for patients.
“Having that level of organization allows us to be present in communities and for patients that otherwise would be underserved or unserved,” Spradley said.
Valley View operates in small communities throughout the region, including Pe Ell and Onalaska, where “it’s just very difficult to run a business of health care in a community that small,” Spradley said.
Valley View is aided, Spradley said, both by the federal designation and the variety of communities it serves.
“We can have clinics serving communities that wouldn’t otherwise have medical, dental or behavioral health or pharmacy services in town,” Spradley said.
That service, Spradley said, has grown out of the acquisition of smaller practices whose owners planned to retire. As the industry shifted from smaller operators to larger organizations, Spradley said it kept many people from retiring.
“We talk a lot in the organization about providing health care for underserved populations, and that doesn’t always mean that our patients are economically underserved, that they have difficulties paying their bills,” Spradley said. “It could be that they’ve got great insurance from their employer but they don’t have time to drive to Longview or drive to Olympia for a doctor’s visit. Having a clinic in little towns like Toledo or Onalaska just helps the community. It helps the individuals, but it also helps the community so patients can go back to work or go back to their families without losing half a day.”
There’s a sense of pride, Spradley said, when a patient receives care at a smaller clinic without knowing the clinic is part of a larger network.
As the organization has expanded, Spradley said Valley View has had some “really fantastic program development,” namely the pharmacy program and the nurse practitioner apprenticeship program. The nurse practitioner program, Spradley said, trains nurses to work independently in rural communities.
The next stages of growth also include finding space for larger clinics in Thurston County and an expanded space at the Centralia clinic.
Operating in smaller communities can create challenges Spradley said, including challenges matching the compensation offered by other organizations.
The pandemic also presented “unique challenges” to the organization, Spradley said, though it also allowed for stronger partnerships. During the pandemic, Valley View deepened its partnership with county health departments, Northwest Pediatrics, Providence and other community organizations.
“We had to look at ourselves more closely than we had in the past. We had to change operations, almost on a weekly basis, to confront the challenges that we were facing,” Spradley said. “But we also got to know community partners really well.’
Spradley, who started his career in health care at the age of 20, as a hospital corpsman for the U.S. Navy, said he understands the need for preventative care, particularly growing up in a middle-class family.
“That’s the very thing that started Valley View, that there were leaders within the community who understood that people were forced to go to the emergency room to get primary care needs met,” Spradley said. “And those leaders in the community decided that a low-cost, primary care clinic was the answer. And we grew from there.”
Learn more about Valley View at https://vvhc.org/.
