Katja Austin is one of many amazing providers making a difference in the lives of rural Coloradans. The Colorado Rural Outreach Program helped Katja further her degree so she can provide a broader scope of practice to her community.
Meet Katja Austin: a wife, mother, volunteer and rural health care provider! Katja works at Middle Park Medical Center located in Kremmling, Colo. as a Family Nurse Practitioner. She practiced as a Registered Nurse for several years, but recently went back to school to further her education and earn an Advanced Practice Nurse degree.
Her broader scope of practice as a nurse directly benefits the community by reducing patient wait time and enabling the clinic to serve more patients. Unfortunately though, it left Katja and her family with significant loan debt. Working at a rural facility with salaries averaging twenty to thirty percent less than their urban counterparts did not make the financial burden any easier for Katja. Looking for ways to ease her loan debt without having to leave Grand County, Katja applied for loan repayment from the Colorado Rural Outreach Program (CROP) and was awarded in June of 2011.
CROP is a loan repayment program administered by the Colorado Rural Health Center that helps increase access to health care in rural communities. The program assists in the recruitment and retention of health care professionals that are so greatly needed in rural Colorado. Through CROP, every rural community has the opportunity to request assistance for their unique health care workforce needs. This flexibility creates a program that delivers a solution as unique as each rural community that applies.
Providing care and improving access in Grand County is of the utmost importance to Katja. She focuses on preventive health for women and children and enthusiastically volunteers her time at the local county schools, conducting growth and development classes and participating in school health fairs. “Ms. Austin never ceases to amaze me with the abilities she demonstrates as a provider. She always makes an extra effort to understand the patients’ individual needs and strives to improve the experience and overall care,” said Dr. John Wisneski, her attending physician.
CROP has not only helped Katja become more financially independent and feel valued by her clinic (as they applied for CROP on her behalf), but has blossomed out to positively affect the entire community. “We have implemented numerous community outreach programs impacted by the CROP grant,” said Katja. “We do free annual sports physicals in the local schools each year, allowing more children the opportunity to participate in sports with less financial stress on families. Many of these children may not have the opportunity to be seen by a health care provider unless an emergency occurs.”
In 2011 Katja won the Grand County Good Neighbor Award for her unfailingly kind support and concern for her patients. “Receiving the CROP grant has played a significant role in my ability to provide community outreach,” said Katja.
Since 2005 CROP has provided funding for 98 clinics and 168 health care providers. With strong support of organizations like the Colorado Health Foundation and health care stakeholders, the program continues to help more people and strengthen access to care for rural patients throughout the state.
written by Emily Berger
