DOUGLAS — Dr. Jennifer “Ginger” Ryan, founder and chief executive officer of Chiricahua Community Health Centers Inc., will be traveling to Phoenix to accept an award presented in her honor.
 |
“I’m completely humbled to be receiving this award,” Ryan said. “I attribute CCHCI’s growth and success to everyone in our organization, so this award belongs to all of us.”
Ryan is being recognized for starting a grassroots movement that established community health centers in Cochise County’s rural regions. CCHCI’s mission is to provide quality, affordable and efficient health care to all residents of Cochise County, regardless of their ability to pay.
“At the time that I started these community health centers, there wasn’t anything to help the county’s poor people when it came to health care,” Ryan said.
She established the first CCHCI health center in Elfrida, an area where the need for health services seemed most critical. CCHCI received a grant in 1996, enabling the nonprofit organization to initiate health services in the Elfrida Community Center, which was redesigned to create a clinic-like atmosphere, complete with a reception area, patient rooms, laboratory and support services under one roof.
In 1999, the first permanent clinic was built in Elfrida on property north of the community center site.
“Our second clinic went up in Douglas and the third in Bisbee,” Ryan said. “We also have two mobile units, a medical mobile unit and a dental unit.”
Through grants, Ryan has secured funding that has allowed CCHCI’s services to expand from “a very tiny medical practice, to serving one in every six residents of Cochise County.”
As one of its more recent accomplishments, CCHCI has been designated as the 22nd Network Member of Paul Simon’s Children’s’ Health Fund. The designation will establish a Pediatric Center of Excellence based on the Enhanced Medical Home Model, one of four in the state of Arizona. In addition, the Children’s’ Health Fund is providing CCHCI with a mobile medical unit funded by American Idol.
“We’re hiring a third pediatrician to assist doctors Jonathon Lee-Melk and Stephen Lindstrom with the Pediatric Center and the mobile unit,” Ryan said. “The unit will be traveling throughout the county’s medically underserved areas.”
All of CCHCI’s medical records are electronic, which allows immediate access to a patient’s records, regardless of the person’s location.
“We’ve come a long way since first opening our doors in Elfrida,” Ryan said. “We have about 100 employees, along with some health contractors.”
Linda Noga, a CCHCI clinic manager in Elfrida, says that Ryan’s award is well deserved.
“Everybody adores Ginger,” Noga said. “She’s visionary and very insightful. She really has her finger on the pulse of heath care needs in Cochise County. Ginger is admired by a lot of people in the health care community.”
Julie King, human resources director out of the Douglas administrative office, also had words of praise for the organization’s CEO.
“We work closely together as the senior management team,” King said. “She is very strategic in her planning and an excellent leader. She’s very inspirational. People are always saying how much they admire all that Ginger has done for our county’s health care. And they praise what she has accomplished for the communities that we serve. She truly, truly believes in our organization’s mission and vision.
CCHCI’s mission statement, King added, “providing quality, affordable health care to all residents of Cochise County,” is posted on the organization’s Web site, on all of its literature, is part of new employee orientation programs and is placed in all of the newsletters.
“Ginger has been instrumental in keeping that vision in sight as this organization continues to grow,” King said.
The Douglas clinic, known as The Jennifer “Ginger” Ryan Clinic, was named in Ryan’s honor for all that she has done for the CCHCI, as well as the communities the organization serves.
Comments