The group working to improve health care on the island has not made substantive progress, and members say they will regroup in the fall.

Last November, representatives of the Vashon-Maury Health Collaborative announced they would like to help provide economical, sustainable and island-directed health care on Vashon, with one of the goals being to keep island providers and draw more to Vashon. In part, they hoped to create a common hub that would provide a variety of administrative support services to island health care professionals and had expected to deliver a business plan in the beginning of this year, but progress has been elusive.

“That idea did not gain a lot of traction in the community,” said John Jenkel, an attorney and member of the group.

Recently, following the news that Kimberly Valencia had closed her practice at Vashon Women’s Health Center, Jenkel and fellow collaborative member Tag Gornall said the group had reached an impasse and members will reassess the situation over the summer.

“We exhausted all options we identified for ourselves,” Jenkel said.

The group had also hoped to secure a rural designation for Vashon, which would provide improved student loan forgiveness for providers and increase Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates, but they were unable to do so. They also attempted to bring a new medical practice to the island, but that will not be happening in the near future either, they added.

Vashon has the capability to make changes that would stabilize health care, they said, but so far they have not found a widespread sense of urgency to do so.