Q&A With Sandra Heffern on Community Based Health Share this: In 2017, the CDC reported that community level health care was key to improving health outcomes saying, “[it] promotes healthy living, helps prevent chronic diseases and brings the greatest health benefits to the greatest number of people in need.” Alaska uses a hub-and-spoke model of healthcare at the community level to overcome geographical and demographic diversity. We spoke with Sandra Heffern, Consultant, Alaska Health Reform, about the importance of community health in Alaska, some of the obstacles the model faces, and its future as a viable model.
Channon Pedersen: I did a little experiment the other day. I went to Google Maps and tried to get directions from Sitka to Juneau. It returned ‘no routes are available between these destinations.’ Of course, you can get between these two cities, it just means that there’s no way to get there by walking, driving, or public transportation. But it does demonstrate a key issue that Alaska struggles with perhaps more than any other state and that’s it’s geographic diversity. Knowing how difficult it can be to physically get places in Alaska, how important is it to have a community-based health system?