La Plata County Public Health Department Prepares for Relocation

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The La Plata County Health Department is preparing for a significant transition, with three branches, public health, clinical services, and the Water Lab relocating to new locations over the coming months. These changes aim to enhance services and better meet the needs of the community. The first move is slated for January when the Public Health Department transitions from Sawyer Drive to Suttle Street in Bodo. The remaining locations are expected to be completed by the end of March.

The first location is where we're at right here, 185 Suttle. We will be here with the majority of the Public Health Department staff, including environmental health, nurse-family partnership, WIC, and the other programs that we serve. The second location that we'll be at is Mercury Building, where AXIS Health Services is located. We'll be on the first floor for our clinical services there. and the Water Lab will be moving to 10 Burnett, which is where Department of Human Services is, and that's in the Tech Center.

The Public Health Department sees this move as a chance to reevaluate how it delivers services and better addresses the community's needs.

With the opportunity to put the majority of our staff in this location that we're talking about here at 185 Suttle, we're able to have better opportunities for collaboration among staff. The location of the clinic services at the AXIS building really affords us the opportunity to directly link the individuals that are coming in for clinical services to the medical home at AXIS. And then the Water Lab relocating at 10 Burnett is an opportunity for the Water Lab to have all new technical equipment, and really state-of-the-art services over there at the Water Lab.

The Public Health Department hopes this transition fosters a more collaborative environment for employees with the new location featuring an open layout.

I think one of the benefits to our new locations is the opportunity for our staff to really be together in a more collegial atmosphere. The setup of the location here at Suttle really allows the staff to turn around and speak to their coworkers, or walk around the corner to speak to other programs. We'll be able to really connect more regularly with programs that aren't within our own service area. So for example, environmental health will be all together, but they'll be right next to individuals providing, say, community health promotion programs. And that has not been the case historically with the Public Health Department in its current location.

LPCPHD is committed to ensuring the transition as seamlessly as possible for the community.

We will have maps, we will have wayfinding. There will be a lot of different ways in which information can be obtained about where the services that you're looking for may be found, and we'll be able to make sure that folks have that wayfinding from here back to Sawyer, or from here at Suttle to the Water Lab so that nobody really gets lost or has any confusion about where the services are that they're looking for and where they will be provided.

For more information, visit the Public Health Department website at lpcpublichealth.org. We're proud to present "Community Insights," powered by the Local News Network and sponsored by Alpine Bank. With "Community Insights," our mission is to foster a stronger and more connected community in La Plata County and beyond. For more information about this and other stories, visit durangolocal.news. Thank you for watching this edition of "Community Insights." I'm Sadie Smith.