Pandemic work by Oak Orchard Health Center highlighted at national conference

Press Release, Oak Orchard Health

BROCKPORT/ALBION – How do you know your health center has used its funding best when it comes to overcoming the challenges related to Covid-19 testing and vaccination?

Mary Ann Pettibon

Your CEO gets selected by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to speak at a national conference. Mary Ann Pettibon, CEO of Oak Orchard Health, was one of three CEOs featured at this event. Her topic focused on how Oak Orchard Health used the American Rescue Plan funding to keep the community healthy during the pandemic.

At Oak Orchard Health, the pandemic had a big impact on patients, staff and community health centers in general. In March 2020, patient visits were down 60% that first month and of those visits, 72% were telephone encounters. We also had to shut down our dental and vision departments unless there was an emergency. All our departments (medical, dental, behavioral health, and vision) are now operating at full capacity, and we continue to be very busy.

As part of the OOH mission, we serve everyone including migrant and seasonal farmworkers and there were many barriers to getting health services to them. Naturally, the newly arriving farmworkers lacked knowledge of Covid as well as a shortage of protective supplies such as masks. Farmworkers in rural areas lack internet access and computer equipment. This made education and communication that much more difficult.

There were many other barriers that Oak Orchard faced and continues to confront. If you’d like to hear the presentation in its entirety, click here.

Oak Orchard Health

Originally founded in 1973, Oak Orchard has grown from a migrant health project into an integrated health center with multiple locations providing health care services for everyone located in the communities we serve. Currently serving over 23,000 patients at eleven locations, Oak Orchard Health is a recognized patient-centered medical home and 501(c) nonprofit Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) located in the towns of Albion, Alexander, Batavia, Brockport, Corfu, Hornell, Lyndonville and Warsaw.