Most who have been here even a short time know of The Corvallis Clinic and its well-earned reputation for caring for the well-being of patients. Less publicly proclaimed, but no less passionately practiced, is its commitment to the community’s well-being. As the second-largest property tax paying employer (fifth-largest employer overall) in Corvallis, The Clinic contributes significantly to the livability of the Mid-Willamette Valley in ways that go well beyond its mission to provide essential health care services:
Resource Management — The Corvallis Clinic recognizes its responsibility to preserve resources and protect the environment. Even as we expand to meet the ever-growing need for health care, we strive to shrink our impact on the planet. Our Information Technology Department has cut our paper consumption by more than 2.5 million sheets of paper per year, through the use of electronic resources. Our Facilities Services Department structures lighting, heating and cooling, and control systems to save energy and other precious resources. And all of our providers and staff recycle, conserve, and initiate ways to better manage our precious resources – everything from widespread support for car-less commute practices to having recycling receptacles at all workstations and in every patient treatment room.
Philanthropy — The Corvallis Clinic sponsors numerous non-profit organizations and public service agencies in the Mid-Willamette Valley. In the past five years alone, we have contributed more than $100,000 in cash sponsorships, plus countless hours of free medical care. The Corvallis Clinic Foundation extends, in perpetuity, our commitment to a healthier future for the communities we serve. For nearly six decades, the nonprofit Foundation has been providing financial, personal, and professional resources to advance health education, to extend medical care to at-risk individuals, and to assure support for people in extraordinary circumstances. In the past five years alone, the Foundation’s efforts have helped to generate more than $315,000 for causes vital to our local community.
Community Involvement – Virtually all of the physicians and staff of The Corvallis Clinic give of themselves in some way in service to the community. They serve on the boards of numerous local nonprofits and volunteer with scores of community organizations. Countless hours of expertise are donated to further important causes and services such as United Way of Benton & Lincoln Counties, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Albany and Corvallis, Community Outreach, da Vinci Days, Fall Festival, the Arts Center, the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition, Albany Public Schools, Corvallis Public Schools Foundation, Albany and Corvallis Chambers of Commerce, Leadership Albany, Leadership Corvallis, LBCC Foundation, OSU/Corvallis Symphony, and many others. The Corvallis Clinic employees also set an example by helping with and contributing to disaster relief and humanitarian efforts abroad.
Economic Vitality – The Corvallis Clinic contributes $106 million to the economic well-being of the Mid-Willamette Valley, and is responsible for 1,456 jobs, locally. The Clinic employs more than 600 people, working in seven locations. It is the second-largest property tax paying employer in Corvallis (fifth-largest employer overall.) Being a for-profit business, The Clinic pays more than $400 thousand in property taxes annually, helping to support the Benton County, City of Corvallis, and Corvallis School District services and facilities that enhance our quality of life. In direct spending – payroll and operations – The Corvallis Clinic injects more than $41 million into the economy every year.
About this report — As part of our ongoing commitment to a healthier and more sustainable community, we are only publishing this Community Impact Report in a digital media format. All paper costs saved will be donated to local non-profit agencies that support sustainability.
Resource Management
The Corvallis Clinic recognizes its responsibility to preserve resources and protect our environment. We have multiple initiatives underway throughout the organization to use energy more efficiently, to recycle goods, and to conserve materials — all to reduce our carbon footprint.
The Clinic is converting all medical records, key business forms, and faxes from paper to electronic format. This three-year project will save more than 2.5 million sheets of paper per year. As a stack, that would be four times as tall as the Renaissance on the Riverfront building in downtown Corvallis. Not producing 2.5 million sheets of paper keeps 396 metric tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere — equivalent to the CO2 sequestering capacity of more than 48,000 trees.
Moving from paper records to digitized images saves more than air and trees, it frees up valuable space — more than 4,500 linear feet. Rooms once devoted to storing paper records can be put to better use as doctor’s offices or patient care rooms. Transitioning to electronic medical records also reduces the time and energy required to transport paper records between locations, conserving fuel as well as human resources that can be used more efficiently. The Clinic has already eliminated one of its three courier vehicles. We have also shifted a night crew that used to prepare paper charts for the next day into a day crew as a result of electronic efficiency, reducing by nearly half the hours of nighttime light usage and temperature control needed for this working environment.
Health Information Services manager, Jeremy Brower, recalls the years before the transition to electronic medical records began, when paper records were piling up and it was a runaround to keep up with transporting them, saying ―looking back on those days just makes me shiver.‖
Converting to legal electronic medical records is a time-consuming and tedious process that requires several stages of auditing to ensure accuracy. More than 25 percent of the
records have been recycled, with projections to eliminate more than 50 percent this year, and all of them, by the end of 2013.
To handle this massive influx of electronic information, our Information Technology department has replaced its old servers with high-efficiency “virtualized” servers, reducing its physical server count by 75 percent. The efficiency of these new “virtualized” servers has reduced energy consumption in our server room by 30 percent, keeping more than 850 metric tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere annually.
The Information Technology department also has installed a new electronic fax system, saving 2,000 sheets of paper daily, or more than half a million sheets per year. Five highly used business forms that have been converted to electronic versions are saving half a million sheets of paper per year, with projections of saving an additional million sheets per year by converting more forms in the future.
Other measures The Clinic has taken to reduce energy use include installing higher-efficiency lighting systems, new exit light fixtures, a new boiler heating system for the Asbury Building, digital environmental control systems upgrades for all facilities, and a new air-conditioning chiller plant for the Asbury Building.
With more than 600 employees in seven locations, The Corvallis Clinic actively encourages the conservation of resources through alternative transportation. Our organization has participated in programs such as the Bike Commute Challenge, an initiative created by the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, and the City of Corvallis’ annual “Get There Another Way Week” event. The Clinic also has a team in the Tour de Cure bike race for diabetes, and has hosted a World Car Free Day check-in site in collaboration with Good Samaritan Hospital.
Philanthropy
The Corvallis Clinic sponsors numerous non-profit organizations and public service agencies in the Mid-Willamette Valley. And through the efforts of The Corvallis Clinic Foundation extends, in perpetuity, our commitment to a healthier future for the communities we serve.
This past year, The Corvallis Clinic Foundation awarded nine scholarships to local high school and college students studying in health-related fields. Of those, one recipient, Rachael Lee received her second scholarship from the Foundation.
Lee was the recipient of the $1,000 Naibert Scholarship, an endowed scholarship in honor of James R. Naibert, M.D., who works in The Corvallis Clinic’s Immediate Care Center and previously was a family physician for 11 years in The Clinic’s Waverly Drive/Albany office. Dr. Naibert’s patients chose to recognize his efforts by establishing this scholarship for area students who demonstrate an interest in working in a health-related profession that involves direct patient care. Lee had previously been awarded the Riley scholarship.
Since 1994, The Corvallis Clinic Foundation has awarded 189 scholarships totaling more than $141,750 to students attending local areas high schools, Oregon State University, Linfield College, and Linn-Benton Community College.
The Foundation’s Puttin’ on the Pink Education Day and Style Show raised nearly $75 thousand in its most recent year, in support of Project H.E.R (Help. Enlightenment. Resources). Project H.E.R. is a comprehensive breast health services program available to women in Benton, Linn and Lincoln counties. The program provides awareness, education, and support for all women, from the time of a breast cancer diagnosis through survivorship.
Over the past five years, The Corvallis Clinic Foundation and The Corvallis Clinic have generated more than $430 thousand in contributions for valued local causes.
Many of the physicians and staff at The Corvallis Clinic also set an example by helping with and contributing to disaster relief and humanitarian efforts abroad.
When the people of Haiti were left with the aftermath of a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in 2010, doctors at The Corvallis Clinic took action. Dr. Mari Goldner, alongside Dr. Hsichao Chow, joined forces with Partners in Health, creating a campaign to raise money for the decimated people of Haiti.
“There was a sense we should do something, as a group, as a family,” said Goldner.
And do something they did. They managed to raise $10,000 for the relief effort that provided aid to the Haitian people. Dr. Laura Rung of The Corvallis Clinic assisted in the fund raising by offering homemade blackberry jam in exchange for donations.
Volunteerism
Virtually all of the physicians and staff of The Corvallis Clinic give of themselves in some way in service to the community, and abroad. Among them are Doctors Shawn Foley and Edward Schmitt.
Dr. Shawn Foley, a family practitioner at The Corvallis Clinic’s Philomath location, has served on the board of the Benton Hospice for more than eight years and has been the medical director of the Hospice since 2008. The Benton Hospice is a non-profit center that has provided care to terminally ill patients since 1980. The majority of care is provided through house calls, for which Foley volunteers countless hours and remains on call for at all times.
“Until 50 years ago, most people passed away at home. But since the 1960s, society made it standard to pass in an artificial environment,” said Foley. “At the Hospice, we understand the comfort people find in familiar settings,” he continued, citing that more than 40 percent of Hospice patients die at home. “You learn a lot more about patients in their homes,” Foley said.
Dr. Foley explained that he often focuses on life-prolonging therapy instead of symptom management, in order to allow people to spend their final weeks in dignity and comfort. Foley commended the Hospice staff, saying it is an honor to work there because it takes a special kind of person to work through constant loss.
Dr. Edward Schmitt, a pediatrician at The Corvallis Clinic for the past 24 years, has completed seven mission trips to Guatemala since 2004, helping thousands of children who would otherwise have little to no access to medical care. For each trip, Dr. Schmitt traveled to remote Mayan villages with other physicians through Faith in Practice, a non-denominational charity organization, to offer check-ups and examinations to the local population. Patients were seen for colds and the flu, anemia, and chronic malnutrition, among other conditions.
“Many of these kids had never even had a check-up,” said Schmitt, “and though most of them were healthy, it was just like anywhere in the world – the parents need assurance that they are okay.”
Schmitt said that out of the thousands of check-ups he performed, he only saw a handful of children with serious ailments, such as congenital heart disease, that required further evaluation, and also a few odd diagnoses like chronic ulcers and rare tropical diseases. He observed that the majority of medical problems stems from the lack of education of the parents, and their difficulty finding transportation. They also face a language barrier due to government services being in Spanish, while the villagers speak the native Mayan language called Q’eqchi.
The efforts of Doctors Foley and Schmitt and the volunteerism of so many other employees at The Corvallis Clinic is testimony to the fact that heartfelt helping and healing doesn’t happen just during office hours.
Economic Vitality
$106,000,000.
1,456 jobs.
And growing.
That’s the economic impact of The Corvallis Clinic.
The Corvallis Clinic is the second-largest property tax paying employer in Corvallis (fifth-largest employer overall). It employs more than 600 people, working in seven locations, serving Benton, Linn, and Lincoln Counties.
The Clinic’s purchases of goods and services, plus payroll and benefits, infuses more than $41 million into the economy ever year.
Being a for-profit business, The Clinic pays more than $400, 000 in property taxes annually, helping to support the Benton County, City of Corvallis, and Corvallis School District services and facilities that enhance our quality of life.
In August 2010, the Oregon Healthcare Workforce Institute published the results of a study on the economic contributions of Oregon’s physician practices. Based on its data for Benton, Linn, and Lincoln Counties, The Corvallis Clinic is responsible for more than 1,456 jobs here, and a value added contribution to the local economy of $106 million.
For more than 65 years, the physicians and staff of The Corvallis Clinic have sought to provide nothing less than excellent service for the health care needs of the people who live, work, attend school, and raise families here in the Mid-Willamette Valley. We’re pleased to share this report with you on our like commitment to the community’s well-being.
