BARRYVILLE, NY — The town of Highland looks set to become a regional hub for community healthcare access, as local leaders prepare to open the doors on a new community health hub. 

Called the Highland Health Initiative, the project will restore the former offices of Dr. Richard Daboul for use as a community health hub. 

Richard and Cathy Daboul owned and operated River Valley Medical Services since 1986, with a Barryville office located at 3452 State Route 97. Richard passed away June 23, 2021, and Cathy maintained ownership of the building. 

After Richard's death, Midtown Medical took over the building, after which it closed the practice, according to Highland Town Supervisor John Pizzolato. That left a vacuum in the local health care landscape. 

Enter Dr. Chris Dickey, a clinical associate professor of global and environmental health with New York University's School of Global Public Health. (Dickey is also running for a seat on the Highland Town Board.) He has worked with more than 20 countries across the globe to develop sustainable health models that address the current gaps in the health care system. 

Dickey has had a second home in Highland for 25 years, and wants to retire here, but is concerned about the lack of access to healthcare in the area, according to Pizzolato. 

Out of that spirit of concern, Dickey approached the town with an idea for a community health initiative. Pizzolato connected him with Cathy, seeing the building as a good place to locate such an initiative. 

Currently, renovations are beginning on the building, with Dickey saying it could open its doors as early as the start of 2026. 

What care will be provided?

The exact details of the new community health hub are still being determined. The team behind the project approached a wide net of potential partners, including NYU, who could contribute to the initiative's offerings. 

Dickey told the River Reporter the community health hub probably won't involve bringing a bunch of doctors to practice medicine in Highland; "I don't want anybody in our community to think that we're going to have a bunch of doctors that are going to be standing here ready to take on new patients because it's just not financially viable," he said. 

Instead, plans for the health hub involve community health workers integrated with and responsive to the local area. 

"We want a health system where people are seen as human beings, as neighbors, as the community members, and the way to do that is through the idea of community health workers, partnering with nurses, partnering with doctors, having a system of referrals that we can refer people into a health system to be able to take care of their needs when they're more advanced," said Dickey. 

He added, "The facility would be, as I see it, a community hub, a place where people can come in to manage their health needs."

"Some of them are going to be very explicitly clinical, where they're going to interact with doctors and nurses and other people who are part of the clinical health system. But I also see this as a place where people can manage other health needs, where we can offer medication services, physical therapy, where we could have some diagnostics, just things that people could come to and have it be convenient and local and friendly and part of the community, rather than having to drive to Middletown or to Westchester or to New York City or anywhere, for people to have this close to home," he said.

Dickey emphasizes that nothing done at the health hub will come to the community from outside as a ready-made solution. Rather, the team behind the project will talk to community members—Dickey estimates they've talked to over a hundred so far—and shape the form and the offerings of the health hub to meet the community's specific needs.

"My sense is that [healthcare] has become somewhat impersonal for most people, that they feel like they're being rushed through [the system]. It's almost like they're not being seen as a person, they're only being seen as a symptom," Dickey said.