By TRISH YERGES • For The Observer

ISLAND CITY — A new primary care clinic, Western Skies Wellness Center, 10505 W. First St., Island City, is taking new patients age 13 and older.

Co-owners Ross Aylett and Amanda Hampton opened the clinic last September, and they offer conventional primary care as well as integrative medicine, including a variety of complementary services such as IV therapies, prolozone injections, ultraviolet blood irradiation ozone therapy and pulsed electromagnetic field therapy.

Aylett and Hampton both have backgrounds in conventional Western medicine, “but COVID was the big kicker for us to get into the functional medicine side because we were seeing hopelessness with people being hospitalized,” Hampton said. “We were seeing people getting treated (naturally) in an outpatient setting, and they were actually getting better and staying out of the hospital.”

They chose Island City as their clinic location for patient convenience.

“We wanted to be in a location like Island City that is easy to access and easy to find,” Hampton said. “If you live in Cove, Union, Elgin or Summerville, you’re going to drive right past us to get to La Grande, so we are in a very visible location.”

The clinic’s primary care provider is Aylett, who is a nurse practitioner with an integrative medicine education.

“I received my registered nursing degree in 2012 from Colorado Technical University, and then got my first master’s degree in 2017 in nursing and my nurse practitioner degree from Maryville University in St. Louis, Missouri, in 2022,” he said. “I also did travel nursing for the past five years.”

Aylett has also studied integrated medicine from others in that field. He formed a business alliance with Dr. Stephen Smith, an integrative medicine specialist from Kennewick, Washington, who is now a consulting adviser for Western Skies Wellness Center.

As a prescriber, Aylett utilizes Moses Lake Professional Pharmacy out of Washington, a compounding pharmacy and an expert in hormone testing analyses.

Aylett’s medical assistant is Hampton, who shares office manager duties and performs nutraceutical IV therapies. She has a background as a medical assistant, phlebotomist, EMT/ambulance work in La Grande and Hermiston and dialysis work. She was a 30% shareholder in Encore Medical Group before leaving in January 2022, and she also worked at La Grande Family Medicine as a medical assistant.

Also on staff at Western Skies Wellness Center is Sierra Steiner, a certified PEMF practitioner. Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy applies mild electromagnetic pulses to the body to stimulate, recharge and improve cellular functionality. PEMF is an FDA approved therapy used to treat a diversity of physical conditions, including inflammation, chronic pain, stress, wounds and blood circulation, among other things.

“Our goal is to heal the issue rather than band aid it,” Hampton said. “If you come in with Type 2 diabetes, for example, we can work at reversing that to get your A1C down. All of our IV therapy is natural,” she said. “We call them nutraceuticals — all nutrient-based infusions — no pharmaceuticals are used at all.”

Western Skies Wellness Center offers IV therapies to treat patients with diabetes, cancer, Lyme disease and different autoimmune disorders. They also perform preventative IV infusions for patients that may have a medical family history that puts them at risk.

“All of our therapies are based on a cellular level,” Hampton said. “We look at the blood work and toxin panels and see what a patient is at risk for, and then we treat it. If you come in with a condition, we work on healing the body instead of saying, ‘This is the medicine you should take.’”

Treatment may include naturopathic supplements instead of pharmaceuticals. For example, during the pandemic, Hampton found that people who got COVID were usually found to be nutritionally deficient, and their body could not adequately fight the virus.

“So that’s where our (natural) approach works to prevent patients from getting so sick that they have to go to the hospital,” she said. “That may mean helping the patients to boost their own fighter cells to work efficiently. We can’t prevent you from getting a virus, but if we can prevent you from having to go to the hospital when you get a virus, then we’ve met our goal.”

Aylett added that eventually Western Skies will add a line of prescription-strength supplements, and they will co-op with Nature’s Pantry on that.

Whether it’s conventional Western medicine or integrative medicine, then Western Skies Wellness Center staff wants their patients to feel comfortable with their treatment plan.

“We welcome patients to stop in to meet us or call us for an appointment,” Aylett said. “Presently, we have a short patient wait time, so we can get in you the same week.”