Britton's resume shows hands-on experience in public health and some background in administration. She comes to Knox County from the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District, where starting in 2006 she served as program coordinator for the Urbana School Health Center. The USHC provided health services to 4,500 students in the Urbana School District. From 2004 to 2006, Britton served as a community health educator for the U.S. Peace Corps in Turkmenistan. There she worked to organize informational seminars on nutrition, maternal health and fitness for pregnant women. She was also a member of the Peace Corps Turkmenistan HIV-AIDS Coalition. Britton was greeted by a round of applause when Knox County Board President Jeanne Harland made the announcement. She added Britton will start almost immediately - on Monday.
Turkmenistan RPCV Heidi Britton named new county health administrator for Knox County Health Department in Illinois
Heidi Britton named new county health administrator
By TOM LOEWY
The Register-Mail
Posted Sep 10, 2009 @ 10:25 PM
Last update Sep 11, 2009 @ 06:10 AM
GALESBURG -
The Knox County Health Department has a new public health administrator.
Heidi Britton signed on the dotted line Thursday after the Knox County Board of Health officially offered the 33-year-old the position during an executive session following the regular meeting.
Britton is the health department's second administrator. Greg Chance held the position since April 1993, not long after the county voted to create the health department.
Chance announced his departure in February and officially resigned April 10 to become the public health administrator for the Peoria County Health Department. Rhonda Peterson served as the health department's interim administrator from that time. She will return to her duties as director of family health services.
"In looking at this job, the health services and the people served in this community, I felt this was a place I needed to be," said Britton, who has a bachelor's degree in biochemistry from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a master's in public health from the U of I Chicago's School Of Public Health.
"I think this will be a great fit."
Britton's resume shows hands-on experience in public health and some background in administration. She comes to Knox County from the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District, where starting in 2006 she served as program coordinator for the Urbana School Health Center.
The USHC provided health services to 4,500 students in the Urbana School District.
From 2004 to 2006, Britton served as a community health educator for the U.S. Peace Corps in Turkmenistan. There she worked to organize informational seminars on nutrition, maternal health and fitness for pregnant women. She was also a member of the Peace Corps Turkmenistan HIV-AIDS Coalition.
Britton was greeted by a round of applause when Knox County Board President Jeanne Harland made the announcement. She added Britton will start almost immediately - on Monday.
Britton inherits a slightly reorganized health department and one that has armed local law enforcement agencies with the power to write tickets for public smoking violations.
During the meeting, the health board approved the hiring of Laura Fullerton as the full-time advanced practical nurse practitioner for the Knox County Health Clinic.
Fullerton had been operating in the clinic as a nurse practitioner for one day a week at the rate of $43 an hour, while the clinic physician - Dr. Tommie West - saw patients in the clinic two days a week at a salary of $59,380 a year. In the restructuring, Fullerton will be paid $81,900 to serve patients at the clinic five days a week. West will serve as the Health Clinic's medical director and consult as his schedule allows. He will no longer earn the clinical physician's salary.
The clinic will be staffed by Fullerton as the advanced nurse practitioner, two licensed practical nurses, a registered nurse and a clerk.
The total cost for the health clinic salaries and benefits is estimated to be $235,820 and supplies will cost another $35,050.
The entire cost is expected to pay for itself through increased use of the health clinic. Projected revenue with a full-time advanced nurse practitioner is expected to raise $190,000 in clinic fees and another $160,000 in immunization fees - the total of $350,000. That would put the clinic program $77,130 in the black.
There is another reason the health department sought to add a full-time advanced nurse practitioner. Peterson and Michele Fishburn, the health department's director of community health improvement services, said the addition of a fully funded advanced nurse practitioner will be favorable in the effort to become a Federally Qualified Health Center.
In another reorganization move, the health department approved combining the health protection services department and the environmental health services department into the health protection programs department. The move puts both departments under the leadership of Wil Hayes and streamlines the reporting process.
Hayes could be busy with a new task in the coming weeks, as the Knox County Health Department met with the Knox County Sheriff's Department and the Galesburg Police Department to develop an enforcement strategy for enforcement of the Smoke-Free Illinois laws.
Hayes told the board of health the sheriff's department and the police will start issuing tickets to individuals and business who violate the law, which states anyone smoking must be at least 15 feet from an enclosed public area. The fine schedule is expected to be $100 for an individual's first violation and $250 for each subsequent violation. The owner or operator of a public place or place of employment will be fined $250 for the first violation and $500 for the second violation within one year. Another $2,500 will be charged for each additional violation within one year of the first.
"We have started to receive more and more complaints about violations of the Smoke-Free Illinois law," Hayes said. "We are not trying to raise revenue with the enforcement - we simply want individuals and businesses to follow the law.
"We want people to be able to go out and not have to breathe second-hand smoke. Actually, we hope not to raise revenue with the tickets."
