If the Oxford College Corner Clinic receives a $50,000 grant from the Greater Cincinnati Foundation, it plans to hire an executive director in early 2009.
Dawn Pfohl, president of the board for the Oxford College Corner Clinic, said the clinic's mission is to serve the uninsured or underinsured residents of Oxford and College Corner, Ind., specifically adults between the ages of 19 and 64 who do not qualify for other public health programs such as Medicare.
The clinic's specialty is concentrated on chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and heart failure.
Mary Jo Clark, a volunteer for the clinic, said at the city council meeting Oct. 7 that even though 10 doctors and one nurse practitioner currently volunteer at clinic, volunteers in the administration and fundraising departments could use additional assistance.
"The volunteer staff is maxed out," Clark said. "We could be more effective with an executive director."
Pfohl explained that the clinic would like to hire an executive director to help with the management of daily operations.
"(The executive director) would handle day-to-day details that need to be done and work with funding," she said. "They would just be in charge of making sure that medical operations are in order."
According to Pfohl, the future executive director would need to be someone from the health care field who has had experience with other nonprofit organizations.
The clinic, with two locations in Oxford on Morning Sun Road and in College Corner, Ind., is composed entirely of volunteers.
Pfohl said that each clinic can only treat 16 patients at a time, even though, according to Clark, both have seen a roughly 44 percent growth in new patients since 2007.
"That doesn't sound like a lot, but it actually is," Pfohl said.
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Clark said one reason for the limit is the fact that medication utilizes the bulk of the budget.
She said when the Oxford College Corner Clinic first opened its doors in 2006, medications cost the clinic approximately $400 dollars. At the beginning of 2008, medications approached a cost of about $4,000.
"It has been really amazing because the numbers of diseases that have been coming are more complex and we can't use trade name medications (to treat them)," Clark said.
Clark said that the clinic is seeing more difficult illnesses, all of which call for more expensive medicines and treatments.
At the Oct. 7 Oxford City Council meeting, Oxford Mayor Prue Dana said the community is lucky to have the clinic within its borders.
"We are very fortunate that this clinic exists here and it makes all the difference in the world in the type of community that we are," Dana said.
According to Clark, the Oxford College Corner Clinic has so far been a success.
"In 2007, we have fulfilled our mission," Clark said. "Ninety-seven percent of our patients were between the ages of 19-64 and 51 percent of them (were of the) chronic diseases category."
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