You expect your doctor to know you but how often do you know your doctor?

At Little Rivers Health Care patients and their health care providers know one another. This is because Little Rivers’ doctors, nurses, therapists, and staff are your neighbors, your children’s coaches, your fellow committee members on school boards and town committees and yes, your health care providers. This is true of Dr. Steve Genereaux who has been caring for Little Rivers patients since 1994. 

When Dr. Genereaux isn’t caring for patients, he can be found coaching kids at Burke Mountain or serving on the Local Energy Committee and the Ryegate Zoning and Development Board. 

Dr. Genereaux isn’t content to treat just the patients at Little River’s four clinics, he brings medical care to people where they are – including local farms where he and a team provide wellness care such as flu shots, and diagnose and treat diseases and chronic conditions. He’s also been known to step out midday and come back with his lunch and a patient he will treat that very day! 

CARING FOR MORE PATIENTS THAN EVER

• In 2021 LRHC cared for 5,822 people by providing 35,588 patient visits.

• We have doubled our behavioral health clinicians to meet a 52% increase in demand for services.

We ask a lot of our schools. First and foremost, we expect our schools to educate our children. But we increasingly rely on our schools to identify and address children’s physical and mental health needs too. 

Thankfully, our community’s schools aren’t tackling this need alone. Dr. Rowe, who was a long-time school board member, as well as our founding physician, recognized the need to bring Little Rivers’s mental health and behavioral support services into schools. Little Rivers’ staff have partnered with our school district’s staff to develop a model of service and care that ensures our community’s children receive the health care they need. This is vital because when services are provided in our schools it means that students and their families can receive the care they need without having to manage transportation and scheduling challenges.

No one understands this better than Emilie Knisley, Superintendent of Orange Eastern Union Supervisory School District, who has trumpeted this program.

“Because of our partnership with Little Rivers we are able to offer social and emotional supports to our students. This care is extraordinary impactful and means that our students have a strong foundation on which to build their education.” -Emilie Knisley

Little Rivers in Our Schools

• Last year 169 students received 1408 visits with a Little Rivers’ social worker.
• During the Covid-19 pandemic, schools served as primary testing and vaccination sites. Between March 2021 and March 2022, more than 10,000 Covid-19 tests and more than 10,000 vaccinations were provided at schools, clinics, businesses, and other community locations.

In May 2018 Dr. Genereaux and a team of Dartmouth medical students were providing a wellness care visit to farm workers at Harkdale Farm when they noticed that the owner, Steve Carson, wasn’t moving at his usual pace. Steve was suffering from a hernia and because Dr. Genereaux knows him well, he understood that Steve wasn’t going to take the time to address it. Dr. Genereaux picked up the barn phone and made him a pre-op appointment at Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital. This mutual understanding is the foundation of care delivered at Little Rivers. 

This is also why four generations of Carsons get their health care at LRHC - from Russell Carson who is in his 80’s to Adrian Carson who celebrated his first birthday in 2021 and the two generations in between.

Improving our facilities to better meet 21st century healthcare 

Creating spaces to meet the demand

• Add 15 primary care and behavioral health rooms at the Bradford, Newbury, and Wells River clinics.

• Create group therapy & education rooms at the Bradford and Newbury clinics.

Improving accessibility for all abilities

• Elevators installed at the Bradford and Wells River clinic.

• Bathrooms renovated to be ADA compliant at the Newbury clinic.

Utilizing new technologies to keep patients safe

• Create “negative pressure rooms” at the Bradford & Wells River clinics that will prevent infectious illnesses from spreading between exam rooms.

Every August Hope Hutchinson bakes her famous Blueberry Buckle and drives two hours from Conway, NH to East Corinth where she will spend the night at the Wells River Congregational Church so she is rested and ready to participate in Little Rivers annual meeting. You see, even though Hope no longer lives in the community, LRHC is still her community. 

As both a former patient and board member, Hope knows firsthand the quality of care and level of compassion Little Rivers brings to the community. Hope was first introduced to Little Rivers as a patient of Dr. Rowe’s at the Wells River’s Clinic, prior to the establishment of Little Rivers Health Care. 

Through the years Hope has seen Little Rivers grow from a small family practice to multiple clinic sites, that offers behavioral health and addiction services, mental healthcare for schools, and soon dental care. 

“Little Rivers is committed to improving the overall health of the community. The staff makes each patient feel like they are the most important person in the world. Both of these statements are equally true – which is what makes Little Rivers so special and impactful.” -Hope Hutchinson

Bringing quality and affordable dental care to a community is a heavy lift and Little Rivers is committed to getting it done. We have purchased the former Jiffy Mart in Wells River and will transform this space into a freestanding, six-exam room dental center. We also will repurpose space at the Newbury clinic to create two exam rooms. Our new facilities will enable us to provide dental care to more than 6000 people annually.

The most critical aspect of our dental clinic will be the professionals who staff it. So while we are investing in buildings and equipment, our greatest investment is in people. Brian Emerson understands the need for this well. Brian is the Director of the River Bend Career and Technical Center and serves as the Chair of the Wells River Board of Trustees.

Having worked in education for more than 20 years and served in local government, Brian notes “We are letting our young people slip through our fingers but if we have more opportunities in place we can capture them and ensure they can gain good paying jobs right here in our community.”

Given the shortage of dental professionals in our community a key aspect of LRHC’s plan is to partner with educational institutions to establish a training site in Newbury for hygienist students. The goal is to build a pipeline for training future dental professionals to both create economic opportunities in our community and ensure we have health care providers to staff our clinics in the future.

• The Wells River dental clinic will include 6 exam rooms at which patients can receive preventive & restorative dental care.

• The Newbury clinic will include 2 dental exam rooms and serve as a training facility for future dental assistants.