This is part three of a four part sponsored series with the Anchorage Daily News. For the average Alaskan, 1997 was the year that brought the most visible change to Tribal health care. That’s when the Indian Health Service finished construction on the $170 million Alaska Native Medical Center in midtown Anchorage. Behind the scenes, something much bigger was taking shape. The Alaska Tribal Health Compact Since the 1970s, Alaska’s Tribes had been contracting with the federal government, Read Part 2, to manage an ...

This is part two of a four part sponsored series with the Anchorage Daily News. Fish strips hung in the smokehouse. Flies and mosquitoes buzzed around the outhouses. Pompan stepped off the boat in a three-piece suit and wing tip shoes. “I don’t know where he thought he was going, but he dressed for D.C., and he came to Indian Country,” recalled Paul Sherry. Sherry, who would later go on to be the first CEO of Alaska’s statewide Tribal health consortium, was ...

This is part one of a four part sponsored series with the Anchorage Daily News. Today, Alaska’s tribal health care system is owned and managed by the Alaska Native people, with objectives and innovations that are unique to the cultures, trends and geography of our state. But this hasn’t always been the case. Ask those who worked to put Alaska Native health care in the hands of Alaska Native people and they’ll tell you there was nothing easy about getting ...

With cold weather encouraging people to stay inside near a warm fire, now is a good time to think about how the proper maintenance of our woodstoves can protect our safety and health, as well as the longevity of the stove. It’s important to keep tabs on what you are burning and how it burns. For instance, a black, soot-filled window on your woodstove can be an indication that maintenance is needed, or burning practices need to be changed. A ...

The Immunization Action Coalition (IAC) urges hospitals and birthing centers to meet the national standard of care by providing a universal birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine in order to provide infants with protection against the disease from a variety of types of exposures. In 2018, newborns were administered the hepatitis B vaccine before leaving the Alaska Native Medical Center (ANMC) hospital at an average rate of more than 90 percent, protecting them from chronic hepatitis B infection and liver ...

As part of a community-driven solution, Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium introduced the first successful dental therapist workforce in the United States in 2004. Dental Health Aide Therapists (DHATs) provide culturally appropriate dental education and routine dental services in Alaska Native communities, usually their home village, within the scope of their training. The program was recently profiled by Do Something Awesome, a film storytelling project of WorkingNation, to showcase unique solutions in workforce development across the U.S. The article and ...