Climate change has introduced a substantial challenge to maintaining in-home sanitary service to communities in the Arctic. Thawing ground and permafrost has increased movement between utilities and the homes they serve. Communities and water plant operators noted the need for innovative solutions to address the way service connections are constructed. ANTHC Environmental Health and Engineering staff answered this call with an innovation called the “through wall disconnect” that allows a flexible connection at the point of in-home water and sewer ...
Patient housing rises on Alaska Native Health Campus
2016 will be an exciting year for our people traveling to ANMC for care, as the Patient Housing project continues to progress on schedule and within budget for opening later this year. Since we broke ground in May 2015, all steelwork has been completed, which gives structure to the six floors of interior construction to begin. The project is currently at 40 percent construction. At the start of December, a mock-up room was built on the second floor of the ...
ANTHC engineering team completes Galena flood recovery projects
Two and a half years after Galena was stuck by catastrophic spring floods, the community is returning to normal with nearly all of the public facilities restored and rebuilt. ANTHC environmental health and engineering staff were a large part of the recovery effort and hope to share their lessons learned with other villages and Tribes before disaster strikes. When Galena was hit with the flood in spring 2013, it affected every aspect of life for residents of the Yukon River ...
Last week, ANTHC Tribal Utility Support Journeyman Electrician Kolt Garvey joined an emergency response team in Unalakleet to repair a wastewater lift station pump, which is used to move wastewater without costly construction. In the interim, Unalakleet operated a pumper truck to keep the lift station pumping after the station failure, but the process was labor and equipment intensive leading to greater energy and time costs for the city. ANTHC joined the emergency response led by the State of Alaska ...
Access to care for veterans at risk in Alaska Tribal Health System
A unique funding agreement in place since 2012 has increased access to care and funding for the health care of Alaska Native and non-Native veterans seen at Tribal health facilities. Through a partnership between the Veterans Administration (VA), Department of Defense and 26 Alaska Native health care organizations, known as a Tribal sharing agreement, these veterans have received care at Tribal health facilities when physical distance from a VA facility has been a barrier to receiving care. To date, this ...
When ANTHC construction crews completed work for the Koyukuk health clinic and community water treatment facility this summer, they helped make sure that the job was completed to the end. This meant assisting the city-owned landfill in a clean-up project from leftover construction materials, which helps to sustain the landfill for future use and health and safety of residents. ANTHC’s work in Koyukuk included building a gravel pad for the new community health clinic, a remodel of the water treatment ...
Campus growth means better access to care for our people
In its first full year, the new Strategic Access department helped manage the addition of 30,000 square feet of patient care space on the Alaska Native Health Campus. ANTHC is constantly working to increase and improve the care and services we provide. This year we remodeled and expanded several clinics and inpatient areas that added capacity to our hospital and helps ensure specialty clinic appointments are available when needed. Areas include: Maternal Child Health, Family Birthing Services, Cardiology, Neurosurgery and ...
The Alaska Native Medical Center is constantly working to ensure we provide the best and latest innovations in care for our pediatric patients from primary and emergency care to inpatient and specialty care. This week, ANMC was recognized as a Comprehensive Pediatric Emergency Center, the highest certification in the Pediatric Facility Recognition Program. ANMC is the first and only hospital in Alaska with this recognition. The surveyors who visited the ANMC hospital this week were very impressed and spoke highly ...
City of Ouzinkie hosts dedication ceremony for ANTHC-constructed dam
On Thursday, September 3, ANTHC Environmental Health and Engineering and the City of Ouzinkie held a dedication ceremony for the Kelly Larson Memorial Dam. During the ceremony, a plaque was unveiled honoring Kelly Larson, an ANTHC Senior Project Manager who passed away in 2012 and led the charge in delivering clean and reliable drinking water to the Spruce Island community. The $2.3 million project replaced a deteriorating wooden dam, constructed in 1986, with a new, state-of-the art concrete faced rock-fill ...
The ANTHC Liver Disease and Hepatitis Program has provided important services to support our Tribal health partners for the past 30 years. These services, such as clinical consultation and education, help improve the health of our people. Liver-related deaths due to cirrhosis and liver cancer are the sixth leading cause of death for American Indian and Alaska Native people across the country. Living with liver disease contributes to a decreased quality of life because it impacts a person’s ability to ...