GRAND RAPIDS, MI — A neighborhood well being care clinic offering major care and different medical companies for predominantly low- to moderate-income sufferers within the Grand Rapids space has chosen its subsequent chief.
Megan Erskine, who has greater than 12 years of neighborhood well being expertise, will take over as CEO of Catherine’s Well being Heart on April 12.
A Grand Ledge native, she holds a bachelor’s diploma from Kalamazoo School and a Grasp of Public Well being diploma from the College of Illinois Chicago. Most just lately, she was chief working officer at Heartland Well being Facilities in Chicago.
“I’m happy to be becoming a member of Catherine’s Well being Heart and sit up for collaborating with the great crew members to proceed constructing on our popularity for excellence and to increase high-quality care to an excellent bigger affected person inhabitants,” Erskine stated in a information launch.
She is going to exchange Karen Kaashoek, who’s retiring after serving as Catherine’s CEO since 2007. Previous to her tenure as CEO, Kaashoek was a volunteer or worker on the clinic since 1997.
“As Catherine’s strikes into one other season with a number of websites throughout our neighborhood, I felt that season ought to begin with a brand new chief,” Kaashoek stated final fall when she introduced her impending retirement. “For the previous 24 years I’ve had the respect to serve the neighborhood at Catherine’s. It will likely be my honor to welcome a brand new chief to hold ahead the group’s essential mission and work.”
Catherine’s was based in 1996 as a three way partnership between Mercy Well being Saint Mary’s, St. Alphonsus Parish and the Creston Neighborhood Affiliation.
As a federally certified well being middle, Catherine’s focuses on offering major care, behavioral well being, dental and well being promotion and illness prevention companies. Its clinics are open to anybody, but it surely targets low- to moderate-income sufferers, together with these with language and transportation limitations, and is positioned in areas underserved by the well being care system.
Federally certified well being facilities “should meet a stringent set of necessities, together with offering care on a sliding charge scale based mostly on capacity to pay and working beneath a governing board that features sufferers,” in accordance with the federal Well being Assets and Providers Administration, which gives funding to federally certified well being facilities.
Catherine’s first location opened within the basement of St. Alphonsus on Leonard Road within the Creston Neighborhood. In 2011, it moved across the nook to the previous St. Alphonsus College on Lafayette Road. Final yr, Catherine’s opened two further clinics: A dental clinic at 781 thirty sixth St. SE in Wyoming, and a well being clinic at 280 sixtieth St. SE in Gaines Township.
At this time, Catherine’s serves about 2,000 sufferers yearly, Kaashoek stated.
That quantity is predicted to leap to about 19,000 folks as soon as the nonprofit opens a brand new clinic at 950 thirty sixth St. SW in Wyoming. Mercy Well being Doctor Companions previously operated a clinic on the website, however completely closed the constructing amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Kaashoek stated.
Catherine’s is predicted to reopen the constructing as a clinic in mid-2022, she stated.
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