Francisco Sees Again

At Community Health Connect we have the privilege of seeing the lives of our clients blessed daily through the kindness of our volunteer providers and their staff.  One of the first miracles we saw came via Francisco Salas.  Francisco came to our office in June of 2009 with a referral to see an ophthalmologist.  He had been having some serious problems related to his vision, and he had been for some time. Francisco suffered from cataracts on both eyes that had slowly clouded his vision until he could barely see.  Unfortunately the need for ophthalmology services supersedes the available providers, so Francisco had to wait five months before we could get him an appointment with a volunteer ophthalmologist.

On Francisco’s first visit to Dr. Paul Olson’s office he was informed with little surprise that he was legally blind.  Dr. Olson decided that cataract removal surgery could help Francisco get his vision back, and we quickly went to work on making arrangements for the surgery.  Our network of providers includes doctors as well as facilities and ancillary care providers making it easier to connect patients to all of the services they need. With help from the devoted staff at Central Utah Surgical Center, Francisco was able to get the services at the surgical center and the anesthesia donated.  Dr. Olson, who also donated his time and services, was masterful in surgery and the procedure was a success. 

When Francisco returned to Dr. Olson’s office eight days post surgery, he had gone from being legally blind to having 20/40-20/30 vision. The remaining deficiencies in his sight could now be easily corrected with glasses.Many witnessed the miracle of a blind man seeing again. This amazing change was possible thanks to all of the many volunteers that assisted along the way.  From the office staff at Community Health Connect, the volunteer interpreters that helped Francisco and the doctors and staff effectively communicate, to the staff and anesthesiologist at Central Utah Surgical Center and Dr. Olson and his staff.  From Community Health Connect we send out a big thank you to all those who participated in helping Francisco get his vision back.  With the gift of sight, his quality of life will surely improve. Francisco looked forward to returning to work, enjoying reading, and watching his grandchildren play.  We are so happy for Francisco and grateful to be part of such a generous community.

 

Dr. Steven Call

Community Health Connect relies completely on goodwill of the doctors in our Volunteer Provider Network. Without their tireless contributions, we would be useless to the medically underserved community we are trying to empower.  We are particularly grateful to our one Rheumatologist, Dr. Steven Call.

Dr. Call has worked endlessly with his patients to get them the assistance they need.  He has been donating with Community Health Connect since January of 2009, and has continued the excellent charity care started by his father, Dr. Richard Call, in 2005. When his father recently retired, Stephen Call took on his father’s load of patients which has kept him very busy. With a recent influx of clients needing a rheumatologist, his service as the sole rheumatologist in our Volunteer Provider Network has been indispensable to our program.

One case that stands out as an exemplary model of Dr. Call’s tireless service is the woman he helped who was suffering from arthralgia of the lower back.  Arthralgia literally means joint pain. The pain she experienced as a result of her condition greatly decreased her ability to do everyday activities that were essential to taking care of her home and family.  Dr. Call not only donated her medical care, but he helped her receive the financial assistance necessary for her to be able to afford her medication.  This patient’s quality of life has greatly improved since she has received this treatment.  Thank you Dr. Call for your service to your community—it is greatly appreciated.          

Fluoride Varnishing Program Reaches Over 4,000 Children

According to an article by Amschler in the Journal of School Health, approximately 25% of US school-aged children have 75% of all dental decay, and almost 20% of children aged 2-4 have dental caries or cavities.  There have been studies that have shown that negative effects from oral health can affect the short-term and long-term life of a person.  Some of these effects can result in lasting physical, psychological, and developmental damage and lead to poor school attendance, lost productivity, worsened job prospects, and impaired nutrition. 

 

The dental varnishing campaign that is put on by Intermountain Healthcare and Community Health Connect (CHC) occurs twice a year in Utah County’s title one schools.  This campaign targets children with dental health needs and prevents dental decay through our semi-annual fluoride varnish program.  Dental assisting students from surrounding Mountainland Applied Technology College (MATC) schools come into the elementary schools to apply the varnish to the children’s teeth.  There are also Utah Valley University and Brigham Young University Pre-Medical students that come and volunteer during the vanishings as well.  In previous years we have had a school assembly where the UVU and BYU students perform educational skits for the entire elementary school.  Due to the time constraints and other issues we decided to hold off on the assemblies this year and just do the varnishing.  We still had the BYU and UVU volunteers educate the children as they waited in line. This year we made special efforts to utilize the school nurses at each varnishing.  We had the school nurse check suspected level 3’s and 4’s.  This helped us pinpoint the children that were in the most need of dental attention, and cut down on falsely identified level 3’s and 4’s.  In many schools we cut the list of children that needed continued dental care in half. This gave school nurses the ability to give more attention to the children that were really in need of additional dental care. Because of this, more correctly-identified children enrolled at Community Health Connect and will receive care from a dentist than ever before. 
 

The success of this year’s dental varnishing was facilitated by our partnerships with Intermountain Healthcare, MATC, school nurses, the local health department, and the Utah Migrant Farms. Worker Program. Together, we provided supplies and materials that were used during each varnishing session.  In addition, we donated dental hygiene kits (including a toothbrush, toothpaste, and floss) to every student in each school; the kits ensured that each child had the necessary tools to care for their teeth and use the skills they learned from the volunteers and in the dental assemblies.   We appreciate the generosity of our many partners in our continuing effort to improve the dental care of our county’s children.