Heritage Health’s story began with a neighbor who needed help and a woman determined to do something about it.
In the 1980s, Lidwin Dirne’s neighbor Mary Ellen, a single mother living with disabilities, could not afford basic preventive healthcare. After Mary Ellen died, Lidwin was determined that others in her community should not face the same barriers to care.
She mobilized volunteers, healthcare providers and community supporters, and in 1985, Lake City Health Care opened as a volunteer-run free clinic operating two evenings a week. Demand grew quickly, with patients lining up around the block to receive care.
That small clinic eventually became Heritage Health, which today serves nearly 30,000 patients across North Idaho. Lidwin’s belief that people deserve access to healthcare regardless of their circumstances continues to shape the organization four decades later.
“To Improve Life”
Today, Heritage Health sums up its mission in three words: To improve life.
That mission has found a natural steward in CEO Mike Baker. Like Lidwin Dirne, Baker’s approach to healthcare begins with people. His career in community health spans more than two decades, beginning with AmeriCorps and growing into a leadership philosophy rooted in empathy, relationships and the belief that people deserve to feel seen, heard and cared for.
Those values extend well beyond his role at Heritage Health. Through his writing, speaking, art, podcast and advocacy work, Baker explores what he calls a “Human First” approach to leadership and life—one that makes room for compassion, honest conversations and the experiences people carry with them.
It is an approach that feels especially fitting for the organization Lidwin started four decades ago. Her determination grew from seeing a neighbor who needed care and believing her community could do better. Today, Baker is carrying that vision forward in a very different healthcare environment, but with much the same conviction: never lose sight of the person in front of you.
“People do not come to us as a diagnosis or a chart,” Baker shared. “They come as parents, workers, neighbors, kids, grandparents, caregivers, and people carrying more than anyone else sees.”
On any given day, a pediatric provider may help worried parents through their child’s illness. A dental team may relieve pain someone has endured for weeks. A counselor may sit with someone navigating grief, anxiety, trauma or recovery. A pharmacist may help a patient better understand a medication, while a care coordinator makes the phone call that helps someone find transportation or keep an appointment.
Those individual moments are where Heritage Health’s mission comes to life.
Growing With North Idaho
Heritage Health now has approximately 350 team members and locations serving Coeur d’Alene, Post Falls, Rathdrum, Kellogg and St. Maries. Its services include primary medical care, pediatrics, dental care, behavioral and psychiatric care, substance use treatment, pharmacy, prevention, wellness and community support.
As North Idaho has grown and changed, Heritage Health has continued to look for gaps in care and opportunities to better serve local families.
One of its recent investments is the Center for Healthy Living in Coeur d’Alene, designed to bring services together in a more connected approach to care. Heritage Health has also joined forces with Coeur d’Alene Pediatrics, strengthening access to pediatric care and creating opportunities to better connect children and families with medical, dental, behavioral health and other services.
The organization is also continuing its focus on rural and women’s health as it looks ahead to the changing needs of the region.
The People Behind the Care
Providing that care takes a large and varied team.
Providers and clinicians work alongside medical and dental assistants, pharmacists, care coordinators, front desk teams, billing staff, outreach workers, prevention professionals, facilities staff and many others.
Baker describes Heritage Health’s culture as one grounded in service, teamwork and accountability, with a question that continually brings the organization back to its purpose: What does this person need, and how do we help?
That question is especially important in community healthcare, where patients may need several kinds of support and can easily find themselves navigating a complicated system on their own.
Carrying Lidwin’s Vision Forward
Lidwin Dirne lived from 1916 to 2013, long enough to see the small volunteer clinic she helped create become an established community health center. The organization was renamed Dirne Community Health Center in her honor in 1999 and became Heritage Health in 2013.
Heritage Health looks very different today, but the philosophy behind it remains familiar. Under Mike Baker’s leadership, that philosophy is carried throughout the organization by a team encouraged to listen, lead with empathy and continually ask: What does this person need, and how do we help?
It is a fitting continuation of what Lidwin started four decades ago. From one neighbor helping another to a team caring for nearly 30,000 people across North Idaho, the scale has changed, but the heart of the work has not.
Lidwin’s legacy lives on in the people who carry her vision forward every day.
