Congressionally directed spending for construction projects - interior community health center (ichc) saw 3,496 patients with 12,575 visits at two clinics located in fairbanks and healy, alaska in 2022

Ichc's service area is consists of two boroughs (fairbanks north star and denali borough) located in alaska's vast interior and covers 20,111 square miles (almost the size of the state of west virginia). The service area consists of a blend of urban and sparsely populated frontier areas. Fairbanks is the third largest community in alaska with a population of 31,957. The remainder of the service area population lives outside of the urban area. Healy is a very small, remote community whose summertime population swells with visitors to denali national park. The targeted population to be served is the diverse, low income, uninsured, isolated, and vulnerable populations living in this immense geographical service area. The state presents unique challenges that impact access to and delivery of primary care services, including its vast size, highly dispersed population, difficult weather conditions, and the number of areas that are medically challenged. Unique climatic conditions affect alaska's interior; temperatures range from as high as 100 degrees to lows that approach 60 degrees below zero. The winter begins in september and runs through april. Ichc's healy site is in leased space in the TRI-valley community center (tvcc). While the leased space is adequate, the tvcc is poorly designed, poorly ventilated and as the facility was built in the 1960's the electrical systems make IT difficult to implement a full array of ichc's services. Every year the coal furnace catches on fire several times and the clinic's internal temperature (which is located on the tvcc's furnace) consistently runs 80- 90 degrees during the summer months of june through august. Ichc purchased property on the parks highway (parcel two (2), alaska state land survey no.87-23, according to the replat filed august 30,2006 as plat number 2006-10 ; records of the nenana recording district, fourth judicial district, state of alaska) in 2006 to build a new primary care facility. IT owns this land free and clear of any mortgages or liens. Ichc proposes to build a new facility with this funding. Ichc has hired an architect and has completed initial architectural and engineering (a & e) designs. The new clinic will be approximately 3,910 square feet with four exam rooms.