VICTOR — Access to healthcare can be extremely limited in rural communities, but a possible solution to the issue opened this month in the Bitterroot Valley.
Sapphire Community Health in Hamilton partnered with Victor School District to create a Mobile Medical Unit (MMU) with a goal of providing proximate, accessible health care to the Victor community.
The Sapphire Health MMU was fashioned out of a truck once used as a mobile vaccine clinic during the pandemic.
It now houses a typical doctor’s office, with the tools needed for a primary check-up, vaccinations and tests for viruses like influenza and RSV.
The truck will be stationed in the Victor School District parking lot until the end of the school year.
Grace Ann Shaffer — who was hired by Sapphire Health three months ago to be the primary nurse at the MMU — says she hopes to be a source for education on prevention, helping patients before illnesses become extreme.
“A lot of people will wait, you know, until they're really really sick, to go be seen and sometimes that ends up as an ER visit,” she says. “So hopefully when we can get the primary things available here, it will prevent people from waiting until it's really intense and have to go to the emergency room.”
Waiting until a medical issue is an emergency before seeing a doctor is quite normal for residents in the Bitterroot Valley, according to Victor Principal Jamie Standaert, who grew up in the area.
The commute to Hamilton or Missoula can often be unfeasible for families on a tight budget or for parents who can’t get off work.
“Actually going to the doctor for just like ongoing health care, you know, is a really inaccessible thing,” Standaert says.
With the MMU stationed in the heart of the Victor community, health care will be much more accessible for residents.
“It allows us to treat students, their families and our educational professionals as well, without it being a huge stressor either to your pocketbook or time,” Standaert says.
Sapphire Community Health decided to collaborate with Victor Schools about three years ago after a study showed the community as having the highest need in the valley, according to Michelle Larson, clinical services supervisor for Sapphire Health.
Larson says they hope to alleviate some of the need for care in Victor.
“The barriers of being rural are such a big thing in Montana,” she says. “We want to make sure that we're able to come to the people who have the greatest need and the least amount of resources so that we can be there to give them the resources that they need.”
The lack of accessible health care in rural communities is a statewide problem. In 2022, the National Rural Health Association reported that 16% of Montana's rural hospitals are vulnerable to closures.
This follows a nationwide trend where data from the American Hospital Association shows that between 2010 to 2021, 136 rural hospitals across the country closed their doors.
This is due to low patient volume, staffing shortages and financial pressures, according to the same report.
Victor School does not have access to a school nurse or counselor due to budget restrictions, so the partnership with Sapphire Health has helped bridge some of those gaps, according to Principal Standaert.
“Our school is so small in size, and with kind of some reduction of funding potentially coming down from the state, it's really important for us to work creatively on how to have community partnerships to serve our school to the greatest extent,” she says.
Last year, a registered counselor with Sapphire Health was instituted at the school to provide mental health support.
The MMU is another step towards giving students comprehensive care– the same care that has often fallen on teachers’ shoulders.
“One thing that I hear teachers say again and again in my 20-plus years in this field is ‘a resource we wish we had more of was time.’ And so I also think that partnering with this outside agency really allows teachers to teach and focus on teaching rather than the mental health therapist or the doctor or the nurse,” Standaert says. “It really does free them up and allow them to teach to the fullest extent when health and wellness is provided.”
While historically Victor teachers may have been forced to take a whole day off to make a medical appointment, they now can be seen by a nurse during their prep period, lunch break, or before or after school.
More than on-site care, patients have access to telehealth calls with their primary provider.
If they test positive for a virus or need further care, they are able to make an appointment with a doctor and receive a prescription all within the same day or the next day.
Patients must be enrolled as a client with Sapphire Health before receiving care, but the paperwork can be filled out at the unit.
Medicaid is accepted, and patients without insurance can be connected to a plan through a Sapphire Health insurance representative.
They also accommodate families with a pay scale for deductibles.
During the summer, the MMU will travel around the Bitterroot Valley to offer vaccine clinics and sports physicals, but the permanent location will be Victor School District for the foreseeable future.
Larson says the goal is to open more units in other communities across the valley.
“We are out there to help the people who have the most needs,” she says.
The MMU is open Monday to Thursday from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m., but Shaffer can be reached by cell or in person at the unit until 5 p.m.
To make an appointment or ask more questions about the unit, call 406 214 5595.
