Bureau County
Health & Wellness Clinic
HISTORY:
Bureau County Health and Wellness Clinic opened on December 17, 2002,
in a one room storefront in Princeton, the county seat of Bureau County,
Illinois. BCHWC was founded by Heather Tinker, an emergency room nurse
frustrated with the onslaught of non-emergent patients buried behind the
acutely ill and injured in a Level I Trauma Center, waiting 6-8 hours for
basic primary healthcare because they had no where else to go.
She formed a Task Force of community leaders to assess the needs and strategize.
Within 6 months the doors were opened in a borrowed space with 12 physicians
volunteering their time and services to provide primary healthcare to the
low-income, uninsured population of rural Bureau County.
In its first year of operation, BCHWC provided free primary health care to 350
patients with an annual operating expense of $10,000. The patient population
continued to grow exponentially as factory closings and plant lay-offs saddled
the Bureau County area with significant increases in unemployment, while
industrial jobs with benefits were replaced by service industry positions that
offered limited, if any, benefits.
By the end of 2004, BCHWC was able to move into a large building due to the
generosity of Covenant Children and Family Services. As the patient population
continued to double each year, the rate of patient interactions doubled as well.
The new space allowed for three separate exam rooms increasing the effectiveness
of the physician's clinics by almost doubling the number of patients seen
by each provider. The annual budget had grown from $10,000.00 to $80,000.00
and two area hospitals, encouraged by a Hospital Impact Study showing a 60%
reduction in uninsured visits to the local emergency department one year after
the introduction of free clinic services, agreed to provide limited ancillary
testing for BCHW patients.
The clinic now provides over a half million dollars in services and prescription
medication (over 6000 patient visits) in two counties.