History of Nehalem Bay Health Center
Nehalem Bay Health Center (formerly known as the Rinehart Clinic) has played an important role in the health of Tillamook County residents for decades. And going back in history, one iteration or another of Rinehart Clinic (now Nehalem Bay Health Center) has served the North Tillamook County community for well over a century.
The History
It all started in 1913, when Dr. Harvey E. Rinehart moved to Wheeler, Oregon at the urging of C. H. Wheeler, owner of the town’s sawmill, to work as the mill physician and establish a medical clinic in the town. Over the next three decades, Dr. Rinehart’s practice grew as he developed treatments for arthritis. As word spread about the effectiveness of these treatments, patients came from across the country to seek relief and treatment.
In 1940, Dr. Rinehart purchased the hotel now known as the Old Wheeler Hotel and expanded his medical practice. By the time Dr. Harvey E. Rinehart passed away in 1950, there were five physicians practicing in Wheeler, including his son, Dr. Robert E. Rinehart, and his daughter-in-law, Dr. Dorothy White. In 1953, a new hospital was constructed – the Harvey E. Rinehart Memorial Hospital – on what is now the Nehalem Bay Health District campus in Wheeler.
In 1980, plans were announced to build a new medical clinic building adjacent to the hospital, and the doctors who had been working at the hospital would move their services to the new facility. This facility is the current location of Nehalem Bay Health Center.
The hospital served patients in North Tillamook County until it closed in 1989, and by the early 1990s, Dr. Dorothy White had retired, and the last doctor had left Wheeler. Tillamook County General Hospital stepped in to staff the clinic in Wheeler with visiting doctors. One of those visiting doctors happened to be Dr. Harry H. Rinehart, grandson of Dr. Harvey E. Rinehart, and the third generation of doctors Rinehart to serve patients in Wheeler, Oregon.
Dr. Harry Rinehart had followed in his family’s footsteps and pursued a career in medicine. He even completed a portion of his Family Medicine Residency at Rinehart Clinic in 1975. After a tour of duty in the U.S. Army, serving in private practice in Central Oregon for 13 years, and another stint in the Army during Desert Storm I, Dr. Rinehart returned to the Northwest, and in 1992, landed back in his childhood hometown of Manzanita.
Dr. Rinehart worked at the Wheeler clinic for a year and a half, and then opened his private practice in the same building in January of 1994 as Nehalem Bay Medical Clinic.
Dr. Rinehart soon realized that if he was going to continue to provide the same compassionate community care for which the Rinehart family doctors had long been recognized, he would need a different approach. That is to say, not everyone could afford the growing price of health care, and he wanted to make sure the clinic’s services were available to everyone in the community.
Rinehart Clinic achieves status as a non-profit / federally-qualified health center
Over the course of the next two years, Dr. Rinehart worked with a community advisory group to pursue non-profit status and in January 1996, the clinic became a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit and was renamed Rinehart Clinic, with Dr. Rinehart continuing to serve as the Medical Director.
The clinic brought in rotating specialists and the clinic served as a teaching facility for medical students from Oregon Health & Science University and other schools across the country.
In 2008, Rinehart Clinic became a federally qualified health center, which allowed the clinic to receive federal funding as a Community Health Center offering primary care services in a rural, underserved area. No patients would be turned away if they were not able to pay, a practice that continues to this day.
In 2013, Rinehart Clinic purchased the Nehalem Bay Pharmacy, which was located in the adjacent former hospital building. In 2016, the pharmacy was moved into the clinic building to make it more convenient for patients and providers. The integrated operation became known as Rinehart Pharmacy, a department of the Rinehart Clinic. Eventually, the facility would become known as Rinehart Clinic and Pharmacy.
In 2013, Rinehart Clinic celebrated 100 years of service to the Nehalem Bay area. Dr. Harry Rinehart continued as Medical Director at Rinehart Clinic until his retirement in 2015. He left a legacy of compassionate community care and a commitment to caring for all members of the community who need health care.
Patient-Centered Care and the expansion of community wellness programs
Integrated care had been part of the landscape of Rinehart Clinic for many years. As new providers were added, there was an increased focus on delivery of women’s health care, and a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner was added to help address mental health needs. The clinic also hired an acupuncturist to provide frequency-specific microcurrent, a treatment for chronic pain.
Following Dr. Rinehart’s retirement, operations continued at Rinehart Clinic with an ongoing focus on integrated team-based, patient-centered care. Over the years, the clinic added Licensed Clinical Social Workers, RN Care Coordinators, and a team of outreach workers trained in helping people sign up for health insurance and connecting patients to needed community resources.
In 2017, Dr. Jeffrey Luty was appointed Medical Director of Rinehart Clinic. He had joined the staff in 2015 and played a role in the clinic’s transition following Dr. Rinehart’s retirement. Also in 2017, the clinic attained Tier 4 Status (out of 5) as a Patient-Centered Primary Care Home designated by the Oregon Health Authority. In addition, the clinic received grant funding that helped expand outreach efforts to help connect members of the Hispanic/Latinx community to health care services.
During 2018, Rinehart Clinic further expanded its integrative health care offerings by adding a Naturopathic Physician, Dr. Eli Andersen, to the primary care team. It is unusual for a rural federally qualified health center to offer Naturopathic Medicine, but it seemed like a perfect fit given the clinic’s focus on integrated health care, and Dr. Andersen’s approach was embraced by the North Tillamook County community.
Recognizing the connection between emotional well-being and physical health, the clinic integrated the behavioral health team more fully into primary care appointments. The behavioral health team also became a critical part of the clinic’s opioid reduction work. In addition, the clinic expanded its scope of services to Neah-Kah-Nie High School to offer counseling for students during this time.
The clinic’s community wellness classes expanded during the late 2010s, and continue to this day, thanks in large part to grant funding from Columbia Pacific Coordinated Care Organization (CCO). Wellness classes have included a wide variety of topics, including mindfulness meditation, qigong, diabetes management, healthy weight discussions, medication management, fasting, acupressure, and a healthy eating class pairing nutrition education with seasonal vegetables from Moon River Farm in Nehalem.
The CCO funding is also instrumental in the clinic’s Prescriptions for Physical Activity program, which started in 2019. Patients who might benefit from increased physical activity can receive a “prescription” from their medical provider that is paired with a fitness or aquatics punch card to North County Recreation District (NCRD). The punch card, paid for with CCO grant funding, allows the patient to visit NCRD for free.
Following the addition of a Naturopathic Doctor the previous year, acupuncture and herbal medicine were added in early 2019, bringing patients another option for managing chronic pain and other health concerns.
Rinehart Clinic also became one of the stakeholders in the Tillamook Rural Communities Opioid Response Program Partnership (now known as OUR Tillamook), alongside Adventist Health Tillamook, Tillamook County Community Health Centers, social services agencies, and law enforcement from across Tillamook County.
During this time, the organization’s outreach efforts expanded even further, working with partner organizations across the region to help connect community members to the resources they needed. Over the next two years, members of the outreach and wellness team would become Community Health Workers, certified through the Oregon Health Authority.
2019 also marked the beginnings of NKN Student Health & Wellness Center, the school-based health center at Neah-Kah-Nie High School in Rockaway Beach. The Neah-Kah-Nie (NKN) School District and Rinehart Clinic had partnered on a planning grant to gauge the need for a student health clinic in North Tillamook County. Grant funding was awarded from the Oregon Health Authority in late 2019. Rinehart Clinic conducted the related needs assessment, and over the course of the next two years, planning efforts continued, with the help of a community advisory council.
Weathering the pandemic
When COVID-19 hit in early 2020, the Rinehart Clinic team rallied to meet the challenges of the ever-shifting pandemic, and quickly shifted operations in order to continue providing care for community members with a focus on the safety of both patients and staff. The clinic implemented telehealth appointments for both medical and behavioral health (counseling) appointments, and the Pharmacy team implemented a curbside pick-up system for prescriptions. The medical team offered drive-through flu shots and coronavirus testing in the parking lot, and even conducted parking lot telehealth visits using clinic equipment and wi-fi hotspots for those patients who didn’t have sufficient internet access or the necessary electronic equipment. Even the clinic’s community wellness classes shifted to an online setting.
Throughout the pandemic, Rinehart Clinic worked closely with Tillamook County Public Health, Adventist Health Tillamook, Nehalem Bay Fire and Rescue, CERT and Medical Reserve Corps volunteers from the Emergency Volunteer Corps of Nehalem Bay, Columbia Pacific CCO, Oregon Health Authority, and other partners, collaborating on resources and working to get COVID-19 vaccines out as quickly as possible once they became available.
Rinehart Clinic becomes Nehalem Bay Health Center
2020 also marked the beginning of another significant change for Rinehart Clinic. Following a strategic planning session early in 2020, the Rinehart Clinic Board of Directors began discussions about updating the mission and vision statements to more closely match the organization’s goals and aspirations for the future. They also broached the possibility of a name change. The idea of changing the name had come up a few times following Dr. Rinehart’s retirement in 2015, but no action had been taken by the previous Board(s) of Directors.
In fall of 2020, the Rinehart Clinic Board of Directors formed a work group to consider changing the name of Rinehart Clinic to something that was more reflective of the clinic’s place in the community–not only the services it provided, but also its physical location. The hope was to attract new patients who may not be familiar with Rinehart Clinic.
To help guide the discussion, a community survey was conducted in early 2021 to gather feedback from staff, patients, donors, and other community members about a potential name change. After several months of discussion and contemplation, and many potential names considered, the Rinehart Clinic Board of Directors voted in August 2021 to change the name of Rinehart Clinic to Nehalem Bay Health Center & Pharmacy. Over the course of the next year+, the staff team planned and prepared for the transition and in January 2023, Rinehart Clinic officially became Nehalem Bay Health Center & Pharmacy.
Rinehart Clinic had a long legacy of providing compassionate, innovative care for the people of North Tillamook County and beyond. In the name change announcement, the Board of Directors acknowledged that the clinic would not exist if not for Dr. Harry Rinehart, and the generations of Rinehart family doctors before him, who set the stage for the type of compassionate community care that Nehalem Bay Health Center continues to deliver. The new name was also a nod to the history of the clinic; when Dr. Rinehart originally opened his own practice in 1994, it was named Nehalem Bay Medical Clinic.
When the name change was announced, a new mission and vision were also announced for Nehalem Bay Health Center:
Mission: Delivering compassionate team-based health care and wellness education to improve the lives of ALL in our community.
Vision: A community in which all people achieve their full potential for health and well-being across their life span.
Nehalem Bay Health Center today (and beyond)
Meanwhile, throughout the pandemic, operations continued with a focus on the health of patients and the broader community.
After two years of planning, NKN (Neah-Kah-Nie) Student Health & Wellness Center opened its doors in November of 2021. The school-based health center is housed at Neah-Kah-Nie High School in Rockaway Beach, Oregon. As the medical sponsor, Nehalem Bay Health Center staffs and operates the student health center, which offers medical services and mental health counseling for students and staff of the NKN School District.
In 2022, with the help of COVID grant funding, Nehalem Bay Health Center added a patient transport van to its service offerings. The wheelchair-accessible van helps people get to their medical appointments and to the pharmacy to pick up prescriptions, offering an important service for patients who face transportation barriers.
During 2022, the clinic also entered into a collaboration with Tillamook Bay Community College (TBCC) to serve as a training ground for students in TBCC’s Medical Assisting program. The program provides the students with important hands-on training in a clinical setting and also plays a role in helping foster the availability of the health care workers so desperately needed in this rural area.
In May 2023, the Nehalem Bay Health District, which owns the current clinic facility, placed a measure on the Tillamook County ballot to help fund a variety of health care-related projects, including building a new, expanded facility for Nehalem Bay Health Center & Pharmacy. The measure received strong support from the community, and plans are currently moving forward for the new facility to be built on property in Wheeler owned by the health district. The new Nehalem Bay Health Center, which will be located on the southeast corner of U.S. 101 and Hospital Road, just south of Wheeler City Hall, will offer all current services, as well as dental services, a larger pharmacy, a teaching kitchen, and much more. The building will be positioned on the site so as to capitalize on the scenic Nehalem Bay views.
The Nehalem Bay Health Center team worked closely with the Nehalem Bay Health District and the project’s architect, Scott Edwards Architecture, LLP, to discuss the functionality and design of the new facility. The project broke ground on July 20, 2024, and is expected to be complete by October, 2025.
Today, Nehalem Bay Health Center continues to offer a wide range of services, including primary care, family care, naturopathic medicine, acupuncture, well-child exams, women’s health, mental health counseling, immunizations, on-site lab services for patients, addiction counseling, sliding scale discount, health insurance sign-up assistance, 24-hour on-call availability, patient transportation, and language interpreter services when needed. It also has an on-site pharmacy that is open to the public, not just Nehalem Bay Health Center patients. And its focus on community wellness continues through a variety of classes and activities. Throughout its many iterations over the last 100+ years, Nehalem Bay Health Center has served as an important resource in this region, and compassionate community care has been the continuous recurring theme. The hope is that Nehalem Bay Health Center can continue to build upon this long-standing legacy and be able to provide quality, compassionate care for the next several generations of North Tillamook County residents.