New Year Holiday 2017-2018

The New Year is upon us and as we are working on our year-end reports, we reflect on the past year and we revisit our professional goals and what we want to achieve over the next year.

2017 has been a busy year for Katy Trail Community Health. We experienced a modest growth (250) in the number of patients seen between 2016 and 2017. We added some providers to our team. Dr. Susan Currey joined us in August and she provides dental services primarily to adults. Dr. Samang Kim, a family practice physician joined us in July and Dr. Shari Thompson joined us to provide family practice services in Marshall. Kirsten Jones, LSCW also joined our Sedalia site offering Behavioral Health Consulting services. Michael Machnicki, LCSW joined us at our Warsaw and Versailles site and Geni Harms, received her LCSW and began practicing as a BHC in our Marshall site.

We hired new site managers for our Sedalia site and for Warsaw/Versailles sites. Ashley O’Bannon and Brianna Murray are wonderful additions to our management team.

We received a grant to support the expansion of our behavioral health services and the implementation of a pain management program. We applied for funding to initiate a suicide prevention program at our health center sites. We also received approval to provide family planning services in Johnson County.

As we turn our attention to 2018, we re-commit ourselves to supporting and empowering our staff in their efforts to improve the health people living in west central Missouri. Our staff dedicates themselves to delivering the Patient Centered Model and devotes every day of their work to creating healthy communities.

We especially thank our clinical leaders, Dr. Gatton and Dr. Vandevender who, not only see patients every day, but also lead our clinical teams as they creatively address the challenging healthcare and social needs of our patients. In these uncertain times in healthcare, our leadership team and managers continue to stay laser focused on our patients and the communities we serve. We are lucky people to be doing work that makes positive change for most vulnerable people in our region.