The Lakeland Times

There's a meeting scheduled for Nov. 13 to introduce a new health care network referred to as the Gogebic Iron Vilas Network (GIVN).

The meeting is planned to take place at the Winchester town hall and some of those expected to speak are Dan Peterson, Richard Logan and Jason Joling, among others. Peterson is leading the effort on GIVN, along with the help of Logan, a Vilas County supervisor who represents the towns of Winchester and Presque Isle. Joling is the newly hired director of the Northwoods Emergency Medical Services District.

Peterson, speaking to The Lakeland Times on Nov. 5, said health networks like GIVN are "fairly new concepts, not nationally," but in Wisconsin.

People, he said, are confused with the term "network health care" sometimes "because they think we're in the insurance (business), which we're not."

Peterson said there are 500 rural health care networks nationally, but there are only three in Wisconsin.

He said "in northern Wisconsin especially," federal funding for this type of thing hasn't been pursued.

According to the Health Resources Services Administration, Peterson said, a rural health network is "a collaboration of three or more rural health providers and other stakeholders who join forces to address mutually agreed upon needs within their communities."

"We want to increase the efficiency of the health care system here and we certainly want to improve access to care, which is a major need here, and then also we want to increase the revenues of our members and reduce the cost of health care," he said. "And again, a health care network is different because we actually have member organizations."

Some of those member organizations Peterson referred to include Generations in Minocqua, a "population research center" at the University of Wisconsin, the towns of Presque Isle and Winchester. Several other organizations have expressed interest in becoming members too, Peterson added.

Peterson covered some history concerning health care networks and said they were "originally mentioned in the Social Security Act", as well as alluded to in the Public Health Act.

"It addresses regional health care issues to achieve improvements in health care and efficiency in health care," he said. "So in the actual Public Health Act, it mentions health networks and establishes three goals for them — first is to achieve efficiency and improve rural health outcomes; number two, expand access to care and improve the quality of local services; and three, strengthen the rural health care system as a whole, primarily so we're not losing hospitals and doctors and providers and those kinds of things."

Another reason to form a rural health network, Peterson said, is because once a strategic plan is completed for it, then chances of receiving federal funding increase "exponentially."

Creating a strategic plan is what GIVN is working on now, as it was recently awarded a grant to do so.

"Our network is the only grantee for the fiscal year 2025 in the state of Wisconsin," Peterson said. "No other organization got a planning grant, or as far as I can tell, even applied for one. And, certainly, from my perspective, Wisconsin should have 10 or more health networks, especially community-based health care networks because, basically, they're a driver for funding. In other words, you got a health care network, the community wants to go for a grant, your community partners want to go for a grant, then basically it becomes a responsibility of the network to apply for that grant and to manage it if that is the desire of the members."

He reiterated what a rural health care network or a community-based health care network wants to involve: health organizations, social service organizations, mental health and educational organizations, such as community colleges.

"But a vital role is also played by the town governments," Peterson said. "OK, so some of the goals that we've identified so far in just the limited work that we've done is certainly there's a great need for more elderly services ...

behavioral health (is also)

a major, major need. Two things that I can see as a health care professional that were lacking here severely is we're lacking what's called medication assisted treatment for people who are addicted to methamphetamine or people who are addicted to fentanyl and then also what's called a dual diagnosis program, so we can treat people who have substance abuse and mental health issues at the same time."

A transit program is another aspect Peterson mentioned GIVN would be considering, as well as "training across the board" for paraprofessionals and medical professionals, "but over time, we want to establish our own residency program for northern Wisconsin, hopefully in affiliation with the University of Wisconsin or, possibly, a Michigan university since we have Gogebic County in our service area."

"Now what would encourage us to do these services ... we have very high rates of cancer, stroke and heart disease in northern Wisconsin and very poor access to health care," he continued. "In my case ... the nearest doctor is 35 miles away and the federal requirement is health care, including (a) full range of services, should be accessible to residents within 30 minutes."

The GIVN region is designated by the state and federal governments as a "primary care shortage area" for medical, dental and mental health, according to Peterson.

"And then another issue that I'm concerned with is the reliability of some of the health data that we get through the state of Wisconsin," he added.

With regard to the grant funding, Peterson indicated the strategic plan will include GIVN's five-year goals for its service area and multiple surveys will be conducted and testimonies from the public will be documented.

"And our service area may be broader than simply those three counties because we want to look at some of the more regional issues that affect ... northern Wisconsin, so we'll be doing a needs assessment," he said. "We're in the process right now of developing a website which will have a survey ... so anybody can go on that website, fill out our survey and be part of our planning process. We're going to have six public meetings, two in each of our counties and the first one I mentioned is in Winchester."

Peterson said grants or contracts will help keep GIVN sustainable well into the future.

"But because we're a non-profit, we're able to keep the billing revenues that we make from our projects, so those billing revenues then have to go back into services which will allow us also to expand care in the region," he said. "So the outcomes we expect from this project are ... that we will be able to accurately document the health care needs of our region, that will be able to expand our services ... that we will be able to train grant writers that will allow us to then seek foundation, state and then national funding ... and then, finally, we feel prevention is a tremendous need here and we hope to do a lot more health education in the service area."

The bottom-line, Peterson said, GIVN believes northern Wisconsin needs to expand its health services "so it can catch up with the rest of the state."

Peterson was raised in northern Wisconsin and upon graduating high school, attended the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. He served in the U.S. and after his military service, he moved to Oregon. There, he obtained his masters degree in public health. Since the 1970s, he said, his work has primarily focused on rural development and rural grant writing.

"There's a lot of misunderstandings about health networks and grants and those kinds of things, but I really believe that the time is past due for us to really build a rural health infrastructure here so that our economic development will increase," Peterson said. "We have a lot of elders that are not getting an adequate level of health care ... one last number I'll give you is the average person in northern Wisconsin receives 38 Medicare benefits annually. This compares to a national average of 55. So we're not getting the health care services we need."