A Conversation With ... Tim Shryack

Tell us about Jordan Valley Community Health Center.

Jordan Valley Community Health Center provides primary medical, dental and behavioral health care for the uninsured and under-insured populations (including Medicaid patients) ... to make sure they have access to quality health care. We also (accept) private insurance (and self-pay sliding scale) but the primary responsibility, I feel like, is to provide access to whatever category of patients has limited access. Our two primary clinics are on Benton Avenue and Kearney Street in Springfield, and we also have a clinic in Marshfield, where we're building a new clinic. We have 125 co-workers (including) 14 dentists, nine full time and five part time, and three full-time dental hygienists. On the medical side, we have six physicians, six nurse practitioners and one physician's assistant. We also have one social worker who does counseling for behavioral health.

What's your role?

I oversee all the programs and services for Jordan Valley, both from a clinical aspect as far as quality, and also for development, as far as looking at new programs and services that we need to offer. I have clinic managers who report to me for all of our departments, and I have a community role to participate in organizations and meetings that would apply to health care throughout Springfield and Greene County.

What are some recent service additions?

In the last year, we purchased a mobile dental unit, and we send that bus out to about 30 rural counties to schools that have access problems with dental care. ... (In Springfield), we opened an oral surgery center. ... We were having access problems getting into operating rooms because everybody's so busy, so we decided to build our own oral surgery center.

Are there areas where you see an opportunity to expand the clinic's offerings?

Behavioral health is certainly something that we want to look into. The need is big not only for our patients but for Springfield and Greene County as well. That's certainly something we'd like to partner (on) and be able to improve.

Tell us about the coming move for Jordan Valley's Springfield operations.

We're renovating the warehouse at the old L.E. Cox Building on Tampa Street near the Martin Luther King Bridge. That'll be open, hopefully, in summer 2009. With the move, dental operations will stay in the Benton Avenue clinic (across) from medical services on Tampa. The move is going to allow us to go from 20 exam rooms to 50 exam rooms. We're going to renovate 40,000 square feet to start, but the building itself is about 70,000 square feet, which we can renovate as we grow.

What's the biggest public health concern facing our community?

I think the whole issue is prevention - trying to spend more of our efforts on preventing long-term problems. Making sure that we get immunizations taken care of, making sure that children have regular dental check-ups at an early age, and making sure that (families) establish a medical home early, and making sure the whole family is able to access care ... to avoid having onsets of diseases at a later stage. ... Patients need to become very active participants in their health care.

Tell us about your family and hobbies.

My wife, Ruth, is the chief financial officer for Jordan Valley Community Health Center. Our son, Lincoln, is a senior, and Grace is a freshman. I like to run and play golf with my son, and run with my daughter. I go on medical mission trips a couple times a year ... with James River Assembly in Ozark.

Interview by Features Editor Maria Hoover.[[In-content Ad]]