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Avera Partners in Ministry with South Dakota Urban Indian Health

Newsletter: All Of Us, Winter 2004-05
In The Community

South Dakota Urban Indian Health, Inc. (SDUIH) is Avera Health’s first Partner in Ministry under a new program started in April, 2004. In keeping with Avera’s mission to make a positive impact in the lives and health of persons and communities, the Partners in Ministry Program links Avera resources with the needs of organizations that serve the medically underserved and economically disadvantaged.
“What we do is provide support to an existing organization that has credibility, rather than establish competing services,” explains Richard Thompson, Ph.D., Avera senior vice president for corporate programs.

Established in 1977, SDUIH operates three full-time primary healthcare clinics in Pierre, Aberdeen, and Sioux Falls. When asked what the new partnership means, Donna Keeler, executive director of SDUIH, stressed first the importance of the relationship to patients. “We are a non-profit facility, operating on limited funds. We are not an Indian Health Services facility. There is a general misunderstanding that we serve at a free cost to the patient. We struggle to make ends meet and to provide quality health care at the same time.” The Native Americans served by SDUIH clinic site locations, by relocating to urban areas, have lost access to free health care provided by Indian Health Services on the reservations.

Keeler describes the partnership with Avera as “a quality linkage.” “For one of the largest medical networks in the region to partner with one of the smallest providers – for someone who has resources to share with someone who has less – that’s perfect,” she says. On a more serious note, Keeler speaks about the healing that is still needed between Native Americans and the Catholic Church. “Historical repair needs to be done. The Church believed that the work it did with Native Americans was for the good, but they didn’t understand our values or culture.” Keeler sees Avera not only extending a healing hand, but also trying to understand the Native American population, culture and needs. “They aren’t pushing us, but offering us what they have that we might be able to use.”

As an example, Keeler notes the high prices that SDUIH clinics were paying for laboratory work. Mel Heinz, chief operating officer of Avera Laboratory Network, and John Kangas, business development and logistics, worked with Keeler to help obtain more equitable pricing for the SDUIH laboratory. Keeler says the difference to them, though it may not seem like much to a larger provider, was huge. In another effort, work is underway to improve accessibility to midwifery service for SDUIH clients. “Right now, we have to refer our young native moms on to other providers because we don’t have anyone on board who can see them through to delivery. This means they have to leave their health home and go somewhere else during this important time,” Keeler explains. SDUIH will begin providing some midwife services at the Sioux Falls site beginning in January through Avera McKennan Nurse Midwifery.

Avera has also provided grant writing services for SDUIH on a proposed project called KEYA, which is Lakota for turtle and symbolic of long life and good health. Partners in the grant include SDUIH, Avera McKennan, Avera St. Luke’s and the Earth Resources Observation Systems (EROS) Data Center of the United States Geological Survey. If funded, the grant will address metabolic syndrome in the Native American population. Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of disorders including high blood pressure, high insulin levels, excess body weight and abnormal cholesterol levels, which combine to increase risks for developing diabetes, heart disease or stroke.

Services provided by SDUIH include: general primary medical care; alcohol/substance abuse evaluation and counseling; mental health counseling; optical services; diabetes support group and exercise programs; community health representative services (a unique service offering transportation to referrals); immunization programs; and health promotion services. Over the years, SDUIH has extended its mission to include economically and socially disadvantaged people of all races living near the clinics.

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