The Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC) has received a $1.3 million grant to expand and renovate the Haines medical clinic.
The project will increase the size of the clinic and make changes in the layout to improve patient flow and efficiency. Patient confidentiality also will be improved, according to SEARHC.
The tribal health consortium will build a 700-square-foot addition to the clinic that will provide more room for offices while allowing clinical services to expand within the current space. Once the addition is complete, SEARHC will renovate 928 square feet of the existing clinic space.
“The grant will be used to increase clinical space as well as add administrative offices,” said clinic administrator Marcia Scott.
“We will expand our physical therapy room, add a hospital room for our extended stay patients and update and renovate two of our older exam rooms. We will relocate the X-ray equipment, since the current X-ray room hasn’t been renovated since the 1970s,” Scott said.
The grant will enable the clinic to create new administrative offices, as some staff don’t have a designated office space to work, or space is rented off site.
“The grant will provide for a larger telecommunications space, since the current closet is cramped, overheats and — as we implement an electronic health record — we may need to add additional equipment. It will help us address other space priorities, confidentiality concerns, as well as ventilation problems,” Scott said.