FREMONT, Ohio — The pandemic has forced all of us to adapt and change our daily lives.
So, how has the last year impacted the smaller, rural health systems that thousands in the outlying area rely on?
Community Health Services, headquartered in Fremont, serves 14,000 people in 6 northwest Ohio counties.
With a smaller budget and staff compared to larger metro health systems, their care is just as vital for the people living in these spaced out areas.
They were one of the first health services in our area to begin offering COVID testing in early 2020.
"We needed to be there for them. And the demand for the testing was really overwhelming," said Joe Liszak, CHS CEO.
Along with keeping their dental clinics open for emergency, they also quickly pivoted to telehealth appointments within a month.
CHS had been trying to get telehealth off the ground for a while and the pandemic helped jumpstart the new service for them, which was especially helpful for behavioral health patients.
"Our councilors were kept busy. Even though they were in one location, they were seeing patients from six different counties because during this, behavioral health was critical and access to behavioral health services," said Liszak.
Liszak says telehealth will roll over into a permanent service once the need from the pandemic has passed.
He also says his staff is now better prepared to work remotely and will be better equipped to respond to a potential future widespread health crises.
"That we organized quickly and moved and people did get the care that they need, and we worked in conjunction with our communities with a lot of local authorities. And that I think we are much more prepared if this comes again," said Liszak
As more and more Ohioans become eligible for the vaccine, that means health providers need to be ready to distribute them.
Liszak says smaller vaccination events for smaller groups of people have almost acted like practice runs for upcoming mass vaccination events.
"All of us learned initially on how to do this with what the right numbers were, what our staffing levels were, we've all learned as we've gone along with it. And I think now, we've really got it down and we're ready to keep on going," said Liszak.
CHS will be hosting three more first and second shot vaccination clinics next week in Fostoria and Napoleon.
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