We have had a nurse embedded at a senior and disabled apartment building for two hours twice a month since January, 2025. This has been an exciting learning opportunity for us, and, as it turns out, a welcome healthcare access point for the residents! We are there to answer questions that have likely prevented emergency room visits. We had Senior Health Insurance Benefits Assistance representatives in for an educational session and learned about Medicare fraud and how important it is to check your explanation of benefits (EOB). Shortly after that class, Deb identified a fraudulent claim on her own Medicare EOB – something she may not have noticed had it not been for that class!
We have arranged several different services for the residents there, including foot care, visits by the Samaritan Basic Care Van, and an “Age Café” hosted by representatives of the Older Adult Behavioral Health Initiative.
We toiled for months on legislative efforts to gain reimbursement for nurses in the community. Our bill did not pass, but the Oregon Nurses’ Association (ONA) bill, HR2789, sponsored by Representative Travis Nelson DID pass, and we are participating in rule-making alongside the ONA.
We exhibited at the OSU Gerontology Conference in April, 2025, and Marcy Shanks, Kiersten Erickson, and Deb Fell-Carlson presented “Reviving Faith Community Nursing in Rural Oregon” to a small, but very engaged, group of attendees. We had lots of traffic at our exhibit and were able to share information, as well as gain valuable information from other exhibitors and attendees. This conference is annual, and is well-worth attending.
In the meantime, recruiting for our Foundations of Faith Community Nursing and Health Ministry Course has been underway, and we have 10 attendees set to start on Monday, October 20! Attendees are from far and wide! We have four from Linn and Benton Counties and one from Washington County, all in Oregon; two from California, one from Tennessee, one from Washington state, and one from Montana. We love having different perspectives!
The Foundations course ends in mid-November and will culminate with our new offering, “Tying it all together and moving forward: A forum to explore faith community nursing in professional practice.” We have several seasoned FCNs signed up from across the country, and our less-experienced FCNs will be able to glean wonderful practice information and resources from those who have been in practice. This class is part of the Foundations curriculum for our 2025 attendees, but we are encouraging all FCNs who want to gain expertise to join us for this! Contact hours will be awarded for attendance.
That’s it for now! Please feel free to donate to our efforts by sending a check to the Faith Community Health Network, PO Box 2466, Lebanon, OR 97355 or by using the DONATE button at the top of our Home page. Grants will likely be hard to come by going forward, so our existence will depend on your generosity! Thank you in advance.