Joint venture to provide medical care to Blackduck

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

Aug. 6, 1996

By Devlyn Brooks

Staff Writer

A unique joint venture involving the Blackduck community and several Bemidji and Blackduck health care providers will give Blackduck residents better accessibility to more advanced health care, said Mark Richardson, president of North Country Health Services.

A partner ship involving North Country Regional Hospital of Bemidji, MeritCare Clinic-Bemidji, the Blackduck Clinic and the community of Blackduck formed July 1 to continue providing quality health care to Blackduck, he said.

According to Richardson, North Country Regional Hospital purchased the health care practice of the former Blackduck clinic, but not the clinic building itself. The hospital's role in the partnership is to provide "interim financing," support services and technology, "such as overseeing and upgrading laboratory and X-ray facilities," and to supply computer systems used in charting and tracking patients.

MeritCare Clinic-Bemidji will provide management of the clinic practice and supply the clinic with professional and support staff. The hospital contracted with MeritCare to provide the clinic with physicians, said Randy Beck, administrator of MeritCare Clinic-Bemidji.

Beck said the former owner of the Blackduck clinic, Dr. G.W. Mouser Jr., a family practice specialist, will continue working as a physician at the clinic. In addition, an internal medicine specialist will be added as a half-time position, three to six support staff employees will be added, and an additional family practitioner will be added sometime in the future. Most of the additional staff began work Aug. 1.

The ultimate goal is to make our services accessible to Blackduck and northern Minnesota," Beck said.

The Blackduck community's role was the purchase of the clinic building by the Blackduck Industrial Development Commission -- a non-profit organization involved in county development. The hospital is leasing the building from the Development Commission, which leaves the community serving an integral role, Richardson said.

"That's what makes this venture unique, is we're involving the community as part of the ownership," he said. "We see Blackduck's role as critical in expanding our patients' access to these areas."

Warren Larson, community/physician liaison for both the Bemidji hospital and clinic, said this venture is unique because the community retains some decisions on the direction its health care facility will pursue.

"The community will have a voice as to what type of health care they will see in the future," he said.

Richardson said the hospital could have purchased the building without the help of the community, but the community ownership provides a stability private ownership would not have. Larson said, for example, that if the hospital and clinic ever have to quit providing service in Blackduck in the future, Blackduck would still own the clinic building and could negotiate to bring in another organization.

"The partnership is a natural evolution of our outreach strategy," Richardson said. The need to cooperate and not compete was inevitable, he added.

Bruce Meade, president of the Blackduck Industrial Development Commission, said the community is excited about the proposal because it gives the people a sense of ownership of the clinic.

"We looked at the proposed partnership as strengthening everybody," he said. "The community still feels a very important part of the process."