'Find a clinic' function's a hit

Medical coalition for the uninsured makes it easier to match needs with services

By todd murphy

The Portland Tribune, Jun 8, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Trying to arrange free health care for the thousands of Portlanders who needed it was difficult enough.

But the umbrella organization for 13 Portland independent health clinics was suffering further complications. There was not enough coordination among the clinics — either to help sick people understand what was available to them at different clinics or to help clinic officials best use the medical professionals who were volunteering to help the sick people.

The umbrella organization — called the Coalition of Community Health Clinics — has found its answer in a high-tech, but simple, tool. The tool is a revamped Web site that gives people information about free health care in the Portland area, and steers people to the clinic that might be best for them.

While the site’s redesign was initially meant to most help representatives of the 13 clinics and other health officials, it immediately became popular with the public at large, coalition leaders say.

“I had no expectation that it would be as useful a tool and as widely used a tool as it is,” said Daniel Heindel, the clinic administrator for the Rosewood Family Health Center in Portland and the new chairman of the coalition’s board.

By May, the third month after the redesign, the Web site, www.coalitionclinics.org, was attracting three times as many visitors as the first month of the redesign.

Last month, 900 people used the “find a clinic” feature on the Web site.

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