Smart vending machine offers health aids, information

By Nicole Montesano

Smoke Signals staff writer

The Tribe’s Public Health department is embarking on a new project, as part of its expansion of new programs and services – this one offering health aids and information from a “smart” vending machine that went into service in early December.

Users may obtain dental kits for both adults and children, pulse oximeters, smoking cessation kits, naloxone kits, condoms and lubricant, firearm safety locks, first-aid kits and feminine hygiene kits, for free, from the machine, located in the vestibule of the Community Center on the Tribal campus.

In addition, they may watch an educational video on how to use naxolone or send it to their phone for later viewing and look up the locations of services such as dental clinics or drug and alcohol treatment. All items are free. Although users are asked to create an account, it does not require identifying information.

Tribal Public Health Manager Christa Hosley and Tribal Public Health Coordinator Sacheen Lampert, who spent much of the last year putting the program together and designing the presentation for the vending machine, said they hope to use data collected about which items are being used most heavily, and by what age groups, to refine the offerings and determine whether additional education is needed about specific services.

The service has been a year in the making. Initially, Lampert said, in late 2024, Tribal Health Services Executive Director Kelly Rowe brought in a flyer she had picked up at an opioid abuse summit about a new smart vending machine that dispensed Narcan, the brand name for naloxone, for treating opioid overdose. Lampert said she and Hosley talked over the idea with Rowe and Tribal Operations Director Tresa Mercier and all four were excited about the possibility of bringing a similar tool to Grand Ronde.

It proved to be a longer and more complicated project than expected, however, although both said it was well worth the effort.

“We’ve been in meetings on Zoom for the last year, weekly, until it was installed in late November,” Hosley said.

First, they discovered that the funding they were hoping to use for the project – the Oregon Tribal Public Health Modernization Grant – would not cover the project just for dispensing the opioid overdose medication, as it was intended for wider promotion of public health issues. Undeterred, they decided to broaden their approach to make it a “resource navigation” and health promotion tool. Uses of the grant funding have to be approved by the Oregon Health Authority’s Tribal liaison for the grant, but with the expanded purpose, approval was granted readily, Lampert said. The vending machine still dispenses Narcan – but now, users can also obtain numerous other items.

Next, they learned that their idea of changing the products dispensed regularly wasn’t going to work.

“We have our health promotion events every month, so at first, we were going to focus on transition products,” Lampert said. “But because of the internal processes and the coils, we decided to focus on things people would need at all times.”

Hosley explained that “we had to send the items we wanted to put in the machine to the company for the machine to be configured, so it was quite a process. They even had suggestions for modifications for product size and what they were placed in, like whether it was a foil bag or a mailer. So, it was pretty particular planning.”

In the end, she said, they tried to choose a wide variety of items that people might need at any given time. The machine’s software tracks which items are most requested, so they may be refined over time.

“Picking the items was one of the first things we did, because once we did, we had to create a resource navigation tool, and we chose it to be within a 50-mile radius of Grand Ronde,” Lampert said.

That means people searching for related health services can find what’s available in McMinnville, Salem or Lincoln City, as well as Grand Ronde, Sheridan and Willamina.

They also considered how best to make the machine easily accessible for users. They chose to put it in the entry to the Community Center. “Security has set the doors to be open so people can access it from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily, including weekends and holidays,” Hosley said. “We didn’t want it to be closed off during our off times, in case somebody in the community had a need.”

The machine is on a three-year lease, so company officials handle the maintenance and software, although staff can reload the machine as needed.

In the first three weeks, Lampert said 55 users signed up for accounts, and 42 items were successfully obtained from the machine. So far, Lampert said, the smoking cessation kit and the pulse oximeter have been the most requested items.

Eventually, they may want to expand to more locations, Lampert said.

 “We’re supposed to give a small presentation to the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board, because other Tribes will probably want to follow us,” Hosley said. 

She noted that in other states, the vending machines have been installed in casinos, jails and homeless shelters.

“It was interesting to see the different possibilities,” she said.