Valley View Medical Center location in Onalaska.
Gaelon Spradley
Valley View CEO
As one of the few independent health care providers large enough to extend its services to small communities in Western Washington, Valley View Health Center takes its responsibility to its patients very seriously.
“Those commitments to those little towns … that’s very important and we want to stay in the very small communities to serve the patients that don’t have the option of taking half a day off and driving to Longview or Olympia for a doctor’s visit,” said Valley View CEO Gaelon Spradley.
Valley View Health Center is a nonprofit, federally qualified community health center governed by a board of patients, local community members, and community business leaders to ensure that the needs of our communities are met.
“Our organization is committed to providing quality integrated medical, dental, behavioral health, and pharmacy services to families and individuals of all ages, regardless of the ability to pay,” Valley View states on its website.
Valley View’s mission statement reads, “To improve the health and wellbeing of the community by providing quality and compassionate health care services in a patient-centered atmosphere respecting individual and cultural diversity.”
The health care provider currently has 14 clinic sites in Lewis, Pacific and Thurston counties. Those clinic sites are standalone or combination medical, dental, behavioral health and pharmacy sites, stretching as far east as Morton, as far west as Raymond, as far north as Olympia and as far south as Toledo and Winlock.
Plans to take over operation of the Mary’s Corner Medical Clinic near Chehalis as a Valley View clinic are in the works, Spradley said. That change will likely start sometime in November, though an official start date hadn’t been set as of late August.
Valley View is also working on plans to build a new clinic on Cooks Hill Road in Centralia, near Providence Centralia Hospital.
“We’re working to rebuild Valley View to become a health care provider that our service area deserves,” Spradley said.
Now in his fourth year at Valley View, Spradley said he and the rest of Valley View’s leadership team are working to address the “mixed reputation” Valley View has in the community.
“If you’ve heard of us, chances are you tried us five or 10 years ago and we may not have met the expectations of our patients and our communities,” Spradley said. “We’re working to become the kind of health care provider that has the systems in place (to) always meet the needs of our patients.”
Areas Valley View is working to improve are communication and quality of care, including how patients can schedule appointments and manage referrals, Spradley said.
“From a patient’s perspective, it is simply bringing all the services to our patients in the manner they expect and that they need of us. It’s intended to make Valley View the kind of health care provider that anyone would be immensely satisfied in seeking care from,” Spradley said.
For more information on Valley View Health Center, including clinic locations, hours and services provided, visit https://vvhc.org/.