Upper Skagit Tribe
Upper Skagit Tribe
Upper Skagit Tribal Health Facility
2284 Community Plaza
Sedro WA 98284
Phone: 360-854-7000
Fax: 360-854-7004
About the Clinic
Facilities/Services Planning
MISSION
To promote and facilitate engineering planning and construction support for the IHS national facilities program by developing and enhancing relationships among Tribes, area offices, and Service Unit engineers and related professionals dealing in building health care systems.
Attainment of the IHS and DHHS missions
The DFPC mission is achieved by:
* Maintaining a priority list based on relative need.
* Supporting tribes when they choose to assume facilities-related responsibilities.
* Planning health care and associated facilities to minimize facility life-cycle costs.
* Planning, promoting, & constructing improvements to exist. Facilities where they are not optimally functional.
* Planning & constructing new facilities when existing facilities do not exist or cannot be effectively improved.
* Developing state-of-the-art facilities with efficient and effective facilities planning.
* Targeting the unmet need with limited resources for maximum effectiveness.
DFPC Vision
To be a Global Health Care Facilities Engineering Division leading cutting edge professionalism in support of Public Health advances and development of solutions to the Indian Health Service challenges.
Location
The Clinic is located at 2284 Community Plaza in Sedro, Washington. The NWSUHB is a non-profit organization established in the early 1980’s. The Health Board contracts for sanitarian services under a P.L. 93-638, Title I consortium agreement.
Services/Programs
The Tribe provides limited primary care services in a 4,500 SF medical clinic built in 1995. Health programs are funded through a P.L. 93-638, Title I contract with the IHS. With its base funding the Tribe operates a Family Services Program that employs a full-time physician’s assistant, a public health nurse one day per week, two full-time CHRs, and one full-time alcohol counselor. Specialty services include WIC and ECEAP. Through a contract with the Lummi Nation, Upper Skagit purchases the on-site services of a nutritionist one day a week, a mental health counselor two days a week, and medical doctor one day per month. One full-time position is funded and the sanitarian provides services one day a week at Upper Skagit. Services include supervision of contaminated waste handling, food handling permits, health inspections of tribal facilities, water quality and sewage management, vector control and solid waste disposal, among other duties as assigned by the tribal health 
department. The Tribe’s Contract Health Service Delivery Area (CHSDA) is Skagit County. The Tribe’s Contract Health Services program is funded and administered by the Swinomish Tribes through a consortium agreement.
Patients
Patients who have no other medical coverage travel to the Lummi Tribal Health Center for direct care services that are not provided at the Upper Skagit Health Center. The clinic bills Medicaid, Medicare and other third-party payers. The Health Center had 1,510 primary care visits and 118 other patient visits for a total of 1,628 patient visits for FY 1996. The Upper Skagit Tribe is part of the Northwest Washington Service Unit Health Board (NWSUHB) that also includes Lummi, Nooksack and Swinomish. The enrolled tribal population is 504 and the Indian population living on or near the reservation is 457. The active health clinic user population is 382. The leading causes of death are heart disease, malignant neoplasm, cerebrovascular disease, motor vehicle accidents and digestive diseases. There were 411 Active users in 2002.
About the Tribe
History
The Upper Skagit Reservation covers an 84-acre parcel of land east of Sedro Woolley in Skagit County. An additional 15 acres of non-developed commercial land is located along Interstate 5 near the town of Alger. The reservation is located in the Cascade foothills. The Upper Skagit Tribe is governed by a seven member Tribal Council elected in accordance with the Tribal Constitution and by-laws approved by the Secretary of the Interior in 1974. Council members serve for staggered three-year terms.
Geography
City: Sedro Woolley, population 6,290. Elevation 55. County: Skagit, population 69,500. Native American 1,484, 32% of nonwhite, 2% of total population. 1,735 square miles. County extends inland to the Cascades from Rosario Strait at Anacortes and Mt. Vernon. County’s assessed value averages $2,463 an acre.. Average temperatures 41-60. Principal industries: Wood products, petroleum and coal processing, food processing, agriculture.
Rainfall (Mt. Vernon): 32.2 inches
Other Information
Members
504 enrolled members.
Other Offices and Programs
A new economic development office. They have an economic development plan.
Employees
Approximately 30 to FTE, depending on seasonal fluctuations of fire crew. 5 contract employees.
Housing
Information on tribal housing is not available.
