Polk County News
2A Polk County Itemizer-Observer • October 4, 2017
Nursing students look at whole health
By Jolene Guzman
The Itemizer-Observer
DALLAS — Ansily Tulen-
sru was hospitalized in May
2016, and after weeks of re-
covery, struggled to get back
on her feet and deal basic
needs, let alone long-term
goals.
The Monmouth resident
went to the Polk County Re-
source Center seeking assis-
tance from the Salvation
Army, and was offered
something she wasn’t ex-
pecting — help with her
health care.
The center, Capitol Den-
tal, Northwest Human Serv-
ices, Polk County Family &
Community Outreach, Polk
County Health Department
Salem Health West Valley
Hospital and Willamette Val-
ley Community Health are
working in a partnership
with Oregon Health & Sci-
ence University’s School of
Nursing at Western Oregon
University. The program has
nursing students working
with service agencies to help
people with needs, includ-
ing health insurance and
health care.
Tulensru, 33, said the pro-
gram has been a life-chang-
er for her.
“When they first met me, I
was in need of health insur-
ance,” she said.
She had been told she
qualified for the Oregon
Health Plan, but struggled to
get her coverage. The pro-
gram placed her with a stu-
dent to help her work
through the insurance “jun-
gle of chaos” and then onto a
plan to manage her health.
“They help you explore
resources and options and
help you find things that
didn’t know where there,”
she said.
The program is called
“Interprofessional Care As-
sess Network” or I-CAN,
and partnerships are paid
for through a two-year
grant from Willamette Val-
ley Community Health, the
local coordinated care or-
ganization.
JOLENE GUZMAN/Itemizer-Observer
Patti Warkentin, left, with the new group of students from Oregon Health & Science University School of Nursing,
Monmouth Campus during their first week of helping clients at the Polk County Resource Center in Dallas.
OHSU has similar I-CAN
programs in Portland, Ash-
land and Medford and Kla-
math Falls, with one in de-
velopment in La Grande.
Polk’s program is the first to
place nursing students with
service agencies outside the
medical or dental fields.
Nursing students meet
with clients in a peer coun-
seling format to help them
address other health needs
aside from insurance and im-
mediate care. That includes
long-term planning and edu-
cation so clients can learn to
manage their own health.
If that sounds like its out-
side traditional definition of
“nurse,” it’s meant to be.
“By working one-on-one
with patients, these students
can assist in developing per-
sonal health objectives, pro-
vide support and education,
and guide individuals to-
ward securing ongoing
health care with the goal of
creating self-sufficiency in
addressing health and well-
ness issues and needs,” said
Angie Doherty, the associate
dean of the Monmouth
campus OHSU school of
nursing.
She said the program
helps nursing students un-
derstand what may be be-
hind some patients’ health
struggles.
That was the case for Keri
Joyce, a nursing student who
participated in the program
last year.
Joyce said she helped a lot
of clients with applying for
the Oregon Health Plan and
had four ongoing clients
with more complex issues.
Those cases taught her valu-
able lessons about how to
approach caring for pa-
tients.
“As a nurse you go in to a
hospital, and sometimes you
work with a patient for a day
and they are gone, and you
don’t understand why so
many people are coming
into hospitals, why so many
are having trouble navigating
the health care system and
landing themselves in the
emergency room,” she said.
The I-CAN program has
nursing students going to a
client’s home, finding out
what other issues patients
must address outside of
health care.
“Whatever the barrier
might be, you just learn a lot
about the community you
are living in and working in,
and the clientele that you
see, regardless of where you
work as a nurse or as a nurs-
ing student,” she said.
Patti Warkentin, an in-
structor with the OHSU
School of Nursing at WOUF,
said the program and others
like it could be a model for
the future of health.
She said doctors and
nurses will always be need-
ed to treat the sick and
wounded.
“But It doesn’t need to be
the place where such a large
percentage of our health
care dollars are spent,” she
said.
More resources could be
directed toward prevention
education, with nurses help-
ing people learn about their
health and how to take con-
trol of it.
Doherty said the program
w i l l p rov i d e d a t a a n d
progress reports to
Willamette Valley Commu-
nity Health to see how the
program is improving out-
comes for patients.
Brent Defoe, the director
of the Polk County Family &
Community Outreach De-
partment, who oversees the
resource center, believes the
program’s focus on both the
immediate (food and shel-
ter) and long-term needs of
clients will be successful.
“What the I-CAN students
can do through home visit-
ing with clients and then
long-term planning and
some case management,
has the potential to change
lives,” he said. “This will save
countless dollars in the fu-
ture, and I strongly believe
that the data from this
model will incite and excite
other communities to adopt
it.”
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Itemizer-Observer
147 SE Court St., Dallas