New health clinic opens at Ellen Ochoa Elementary, offers COVID-19 testing in addition to other specialized services

Preventing the spread of COVID-19 wasn’t the original purpose of a health clinic that opened at Ellen Ochoa Elementary School this week, but now organizers see it as the first line of defense.

Community Health Connection began serving patients from its new facility on the campus of the Union Public Schools elementary Monday. The Eastside Clinic at 12020 E. 31st St. is twice as big as the health center’s former location in east Tulsa and offers an array of expanded services for dentistry, behavioral health, pharmaceuticals and more.

The larger space also allows the clinic to better provide COVID-19 testing, a feature Community Health Connection CEO Jim McCarthy never envisioned when construction began more than a year ago. The project was funded by nearly $10 million in voter-approved Vision Tulsa funds.

“We are doing our part to fight the good fight for this virus so we can flatten the curve and find our way back to normalcy,” McCarthy said.

Many appointments currently are conducted via phone or video, but medical providers at the Eastside Clinic have had no shortage of face-to-face visitations so far. Patients are asked to wait in their vehicle until they receive a call notifying them that their exam room is ready.

Not everyone is there because of the coronavirus pandemic. Some go to receive prenatal care, while others need prescriptions. But the new facility has become a primary destination for those who are concerned they’ve been exposed or infected.

McCarthy said Eastside Clinic provides COVID-19 testing because of its responsibility to serve community members — no matter the situation.

However, the relocated health center continues to face limitations due to an ongoing supply shortage. Only those experiencing some symptoms will receive the test.

McCarthy said medical providers still don’t have enough testing kits despite Oklahoma’s concerted efforts to boost availability, McCarthy said.

“There initially were very few tests,” he said. “The state has more tests now, but we’re still in a shortage of the test kits, the actual swabs that are placed up into the sinus cavity to collect the specimen. We use the same swabs for other tests, including influenza and strep.”

The upside, McCarthy noted, is the clinic now has a much larger capacity to conduct these tests than at its old location near 21st Street and Interstate 44. And he reiterated that COVID-19 testing is only one of its numerous available services.

The center needed an upgrade long before the pandemic to keep up with the growing patient demand. Community Health Connection partnered with Union Public Schools to open a larger facility at Ellen Ochoa, fulfilling Superintendent Kirt Hartzler’s vision of transforming the new elementary into a community school.

“Opening the clinic kind of completes Union’s community school village that we’ve been planning for so many years,” Hartzler said. “The 32 acres was always meant to be an elementary school and a comprehensive health clinic serving not only students and families, but this whole part of Tulsa.”