Today we’d like to introduce you to Lori Wisdom.
Lori started her medical career in EMS as a volunteer ECA and progressed to a Licensed Paramedic, a license she still holds today. Many nights and weekends were spent providing volunteer emergency medical care with Cypress Creek EMS and Harris County Emergency Corps. After completing her first Bachelor of Science degree at Texas A&M University in College Station (1991), she continued on at Texas Woman’s University to complete her Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
Going straight to the work in the Emergency Center at the original Hermann Hospital was the first step in achieving her dream of flying as a Flight Nurse for Hermann Life Flight. Two short years later she was blessed by Dr. Red Duke as a member of the flight crew, and spent the rest of her Hermann Hospital nursing career at Life Flight. Extensive training and education with top physicians and countless hours of caring for the most critically ill and injured patients provided the base for Lori to further her education. In 2008 she graduated from University of Texas Health Science Center Houston with a Master’s Degree as a Family/Emergency Nurse Practitioner. At that time she began working in local emergency centers as a Nurse Practitioner, and began dreaming of having her own clinic some day in an effort to improve the general health of the local community and keep people out of the ER for preventable illness. A series of events and the unwavering support of her husband Bobby led to the formation of Access Health Clinic, and they opened the doors on February 18, 2016 to the first patient. Bobby is a helicopter pilot for Memorial Hermann Life Flight, and this year marked 27 years of service. All clinical services at Access Health Clinic are provided by Nurse Practitioners, primarily Lori and her mother, Jean Barnes. Jean is a Family/Emergency Nurse Practitioner, and has worked in many local emergency centers for the last 11 years. She got her start in nursing at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital Emergency Center in 1995. Lori and Jean actually attended their Master’s program together and have spent countless hours making this dream into a reality.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Many of our challenges are the same as other small business owners. We struggle with taxes and labor costs, negotiating fair prices with vendors and service companies, and the financial costs of business start-up. Some unique problems we have encountered are the difficulties getting established in a community, becoming noticed online and the ability of patients to locate us on internet searches. Many of the search engines block new businesses, many referral sites give preference to businesses who advertise heavily with them, and personal referrals come slowly. We are gaining trust with our patients and receive quite a bit of referral business now, but it has been slow to grow.
Other challenges have come from being in the medical industry. Many people are not willing to make health care and wellness a priority, preferring to use their available funds on other items. Frequently we see patients who have neglected their health and now are facing serious complications that are more costly to correct, requiring more expensive testing and therapies. Many times they no longer have the resources to adequately care for their condition.
Another challenge comes from our colleagues. We are a family medicine clinic owned and operated by Nurse Practitioners, so we sometimes get a little push back from other physicians and offices. We also have more difficulty negotiating fair prices for testing and medical supplies since we are a single office with a small patient base, and operated by Nurse Practitioners. Texas has been a state holding out on granting Nurse Practitioners full practice authority, despite solid evidence that Family Nurse Practitioners provide equivalent quality care, and often exceed benchmarks for health promotion thereby achieving better outcomes for patients.
The Quality and Effectiveness of Care Provided by Nurse Practitioners
Julie Stanik-Hutt, PhD, ACNP-BC; Robin P. Newhouse, PhD, NEA-BC; Kathleen M; White, PhD, NEA-BC; Meg Johantgen, PhD, RN; Eric B. Bass, MD, MPH;
George Zangaro, PhD, RN; Renee Wilson, MS; Lily Fountain, MS, CNM; Donald M. Steinwachs, PhD; Lou Heindel, DNP, CRNA; Jonathan P. Weiner, DrPH
Journal for Nurse Practitioners. 2013; 9(8):492-500.e13.
Conclusions
Multiple policy implications can be drawn from these results. [70] The evidence identified in this review supports the premise that outcomes of NP-provided care are equivalent to those of physicians. Thus the question of the comparability of NP/MD quality, safety, and effectiveness of care is answered, to a very considerable degree, by this review.
A growing number of influential groups have called for the appropriate use of all qualified providers (including NPs) to address the health care needs and improve health outcomes of Americans. [15,16,71,72] Physicians, NPs, and their respective professional organizations should use the results of this review to help Initiate interprofessional discussions that could lead to better understanding of one another’s roles and capabilities and, ultimately, to improved care systems in which all providers contribute to the maximum extent that their education and qualifications allow. [73–76] These conversations might also lead to greater opportunities for NPs and MDs to be educated on a cooperative interdisciplinary basis within joint medical/nursing training programs. NPs play an increasingly important role in providing high quality patient care in the US. The results of this systematic review will help to address concerns about whether NPs can safely augment the MD supply and support health care reform efforts aimed at expanding access to the tens of millions of newly insured Americans.
An effective health system integrates the diverse knowledge and skills of multiple types of providers who communicate and collaborate with the patient and each another and are accountable to deliver coordinated care to the patient and society. [77, 78] Health care professionals need to create better and more collaborative systems. Health care reform initiatives, such as patient-centered medical homes and accountable care organizations should be designed to examine these collaborative care models and to document the outcomes and effectiveness of alternative staffing models. Future evaluation studies of alternative workforce teams should differentiate among the provider models used. In this manner we can advance our knowledge base on the effectiveness of various workforce alternatives that will be found as our system undergoes transformation. Governmental, institutional, and payer policies need to accommodate these diverse models of care. [78]
This systematic review supports previous evidence amassed over the past decade that NPs deliver high quality, safe, and effective care to a large number of patient populations in a variety of settings. NPs practicing autonomously and in partnership with MDs have a very significant role in promoting health and providing care to diverse populations in numerous settings. In this time of health care reform and system evolution, to best meet the needs of Americans, it is essential that future models of care take full advantage of the growing number of NPs to their full potential and capabilities.
Access Health Clinic – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
While our specialty is Family Practice Medicine caring for infants through older adults, we offer some Urgent Care services as well. Our emphasis is on achieving and maintaining wellness through all life stages, offering well child visits, immunizations, regular checkups and laboratory testing, well woman exams, and treatment of stable chronic medical conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol and thyroid disease. In addition, we accept walk in patients every day for treatment of more urgent conditions such as UTI’s, sinus infections, viral illnesses, coughs and colds, abscesses, lacerations, minor injuries, and unexpected medical needs. Our Nurse Practitioners are Board Certified in Family Practice, and recognized by Texas additionally as Emergency Nurse Practitioners. The dual training definitely helps expand the services we can offer our patients.
One of the most important lessons we have learned, as providers as well as business owners, is to trust ourselves. If something doesn’t seem right it probably isn’t! While much of our initial knowledge was provided by others with similar business interests, each business venture stands alone and has its own unique progression of growth. While I am persistent (some say stubborn), I have had to really learn to be patient.
Contact Info:
- Address: 6402 Louetta Road Ste. 140 Spring, Texas 77379
- Website: www.accesshealthclinictexas.com
- Phone: 281-251- 8700
- Email: loriwisdom@hotmail.com
- Facebook: accesshealthclinic
- Yelp: www.yelp.com/biz/access-health- clinic-spring
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