Northern Border Region

Our current strategic plan also has planned work extending into the next two years to look at the feasibility of and models for further expansion of community-based services, for example expansion of services into long term care facilities and exploring the pros and cons of developing a mobile dental unit."

We are benefitting from improved communications among the staff; improved organization of the Center with establishment of lead positions and leadership meetings; improved work flows; improved QI/QA programs; growth of community-based work that helps expand access to care for our community without having to expand our physical space; and a successful expansion of the scope of our community-based services in our Head Start and Early Childhood Education programs so children have access to a full spectrum of oral health care with 85% receiving all the services they need to maintain their oral health within their classroom setting and all participating children having a dental home with Waterville Community Dental Center."

The team was energizing, experienced, knowledgeable, and a pleasure to work with. They clearly appreciated both the importance and challenges of providing rural based health care services."

The team made themselves available at any time and were willing to brainstorm and work through programmatic decisions to achieve the best outcome. The survey results of the program were better than we could have hoped when we started the project."

The additional tools RHRC provided, including a workflow study and written analysis, identification of grant resources when the need for IT updating was identified, benchmarked information and templates for use in both analysis of our clinical practice and in our board building and re-organization were very helpful."

The biggest challenges we had in working on this process were those internal to our own organization in terms of time limitations and continually evolving trials such as staffing turnover that made work on a longer sighted strategic planning process difficult. RHRC was very helpful organizing our meetings and keeping us on track with the work. We appreciated their patience, energy, and expertise. I cannot identify a way they could have been more helpful."

It is hard to cut it down into one most helpful part. The assistance with the analysis of our workflow, strengths, and challenges and the organization of the work that needed to be done into a structured strategic plan was a big piece. Time challenges and limited experience had led to significant barriers in doing the work without the RHRC support we received."

The team have been great partners of ours, and the the other groups they have brought in to work with us have been top-notch."

Thank you—we truly appreciated the opportunity to work with your organization and get to know each of you. Everyone brought something unique to the table, and we valued your responsiveness, flexibility, and willingness to help us work through a complex and important process."

The collaborative approach to preparing meeting agendas, along with reflecting on previous meetings and clearly identifying next steps, was especially helpful. RHRC staff brought valuable perspectives from their experience working in both local health department and hospital settings, which helped us navigate challenges and move the work forward with our partners. We specifically felt grateful to be a true participant at the planning meetings."

RHRC staff really listened and "got it" when it came to boots-on-the-ground implementation and development. They were incredibly knowledgeable, supportive, and helpful. They took as much of the burden off our shoulders as they could. I cannot believe the vast array of knowledge and support that we got. We could not have paid for anything better!! Thoroughly impressed!”

Deep understanding of rural health, highly engaged, very supportive.”

All our engagements have been top notch and have helped us significantly improve operations. We could not afford this level of consultative services without the help of the RHRC.”

Our team has been through some of these kinds of [strategic planning] experiences before with groups that felt like they were working from afar and never made the effort to understand existing operations, so I just wanted to share that even the skeptics [on the team] feel more confident this time around."