Tippecanoe County's health board unanimously supports full-time health officer

LAFAYETTE, Ind. ― The Tippecanoe County Board of Health unanimously agreed Wednesday that the next county health officer needs to be in a full-time position.

“We really appreciate the work that Dr. Loomis has done," board President Dr. Juliann Stout said. "We’ve had basically a pilot program of a full-time health officer. We’ve had an individual working as a full-time health officer, starting a lot of new programs."

The board of health created a subcommittee Wednesday to write a detailed job description for a full-time health officer and present it to the Tippecanoe County commissioners at their Aug. 19 meeting.

The health officer traditionally has filled a part-time advisory role in Tippecanoe County.

“Just because something has always been done in a certain way, I just want be assured in my own mind that we’re willing to consider the fact that this county deserved a full-time health officer,” board member Carol Ott asked commissioner Tracy Brown, who attended the morning meeting.

Brown said a full-time health officer is on the table for discussions.

Ott noted that the state's Health First Initiative encourages full-time health officers and accredited county health departments, and she suspects that complying with these recommendations puts the county in better stead to receive future grants.

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Loomis created a business model last year that included funding from the Health First Initiative to get the model up and running. The model envisions a self-funding operation that bills Medicaid for services to patients. This, in turn, will not burden the taxpayers for the expansions at the health department.

“The recommendation for a full-time health officer, I just feel like is a no-brainer,” West Lafayette resident Pauline Shen said to the board.

“We are the seventh-largest county by population in the state of Indiana, and we don’t have a full-time health officer,” said Shen, who is a retired epidemiologist at the health department. “The state of Indiana is in the bottom half of the country in terms of public health. We’re no longer a small, rural, agricultural town.

“I think it’s a bit of a thankless job," Shen said of a full-time health officer's responsibilities. "This is a job that is really important. Public health is really important to our citizens.”

“I think it’s time," board member Dr. John Thomas said. "I think we’re past the point of debating whether or not we need a full-time” health officer.

“Certainly, the health board is not the end-all, be-all of this decision," Stout said. "The county commissioners, at the first level, need to approve the job description and salary, then county council personnel committee, and county council. The county’s human resources is involved in the mix there.

“Then once we actually have an approved job description and salary and appropriation of funds for the salary, we go to Phase 2 where we actually post the description then move through the ultimate levels of interviews and approval.”

There is no clear-cut timeline for when a new health officer will be appointed. The board's next meeting is 7 a.m. Nov. 6.

Reach Ron Wilkins at rwilkins@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @RonWilkins2.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Tippecanoe County's health board unanimously supports full-time health officer