Clinic at Mercury Courts 4 Year Anniversary in August

The Clinic at Mercury Courts

In August 2016, The Clinic at Mercury Courts will be celebrating its 4^th year serving residents of Urban Housing Solutions and the surrounding community, as well as, the Greater Nashville Metropolitan as a whole. We have had so many successes over the past 4 years it is almost impossible to list them all, but here are just a few of our most exceptional achievements and highlights over the past 4 years.

1. The Vanderbilt Pre-Nursing Society Miles for Mercury 5K

For the past two years the Vanderbilt Pre-Nursing Society has organized the Miles for Mercury 5K run. This event was completely planned and implemented by undergraduate students at Vanderbilt University preparing to enter into nursing school. Besides coming up with a remarkably catchy name for their event, they were able to single handedly raise over $3,000.  This money has gone directly to the medical needs of patients at the clinic. Specifically, the funds were used to provide medicine, supplies, and testing for the many patients in Davidson County that still do not have access to health insurance of any kind due to their socioeconomic status.

Inaugural Mile for Mercury 5K

2. Starting Point 2014-2015 Adult and Family Events

Between 2014 and 2015 the Clinic Mercury Courts provided volunteers and medical leadership for 2 major events organized by the Nashville Coalition for the Homeless. Between these two events the clinic, in collaboration with multiple community partners, was able to provide medical, behavioral and dental services to over 500 individuals and families experiencing chronic homelessness. These events had student, faculty and staff volunteers from Vanderbilt University School of Nursing, Lipscomb University College of Pharmacy, and Trevecca University Physicians Assistant Program.

Starting Point Family Event Team

Providing needed foot care at Starting Point Adult Event

 3. Holiday Gift Bags

Due to the generous donations of Vanderbilt University School of Nursing Faculty and Staff, the Clinic at Mercury Courts has maintained the holiday tradition of giving back to our community.  Each holiday season, the clinic has been able to give out over 300 gift bags to patients and community members as a thank you for trusting us to provide primary care services and educate the next generation of healthcare leaders within their community.  It truly is our privilege to serve them.

Gift Bag Prep for the Holidays is always fun and messy!

4. Publications and Presentations

The Clinic has been asked to present its unique Interprofessional Practice and Education Model at both Stanford University’s Medicine-X Ed in Stanford, CA and at The Interprofessional Healthcare Summit at Armstrong University in Savannah, GA. Both of these events were internationally attended events. The talks focused on educating and creating dialog between healthcare leaders both nationally and globally about the needs and benefits, as well as, the challenges facing the advancement of team-based care in today’s healthcare environment. 

Team Preparing to speak at MedX ED at Stanford University

 Over the years the clinic has also served as the platform for numerous interprofessional students projects from notable programs, such as the Vanderbilt Program for Interprofessional Learning, The Cal Turner Fellowship and The Meharry-Vanderbilt Alliance. Notable project topics include the development of social services assessment procedures, diabetes testing protocols, and organizational and clinical strategic planning projects (new programs and service expansions for the clinic).

VPIL Team present diabetes improvement plan at Vanderbilt University

 Lastly, the work of the clinic has been featured in numerous practice and academic journals. Here are a few links to recent publication below:

Integration of Clinical Pharmacist Services into an Underserved Primary Care Clinic Utilizing an Interprofessional Collaborative Practice Model

Evidence-Guided Integration of Interprofessional Collaborative Practice into Nurse Managed Health Centers

Evidence-based development in nurse-led interprofessional teams

All of these successful endeavors have been possible due to the dedicated work of the staff, students, and providers serving in the clinic, our consistently reliable community partners, and the supportive communities in which we serve, live and work.  To mention them all or express the amount of gratitude we have for them would simply be impossible. 

* The Clinic at Mercury Courts is partially funded under an agreement with the State of Tennessee as a Safety Net clinic.

Happy Holidays 2013

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays Everyone! We have had a great year at the Clinic at Mercury Courts.  To show our appreciation to the Mercury Courts Community, the Vanderbilt School of Nursing donated over $400 and enough goodies to fill over 200 Christmas gift bags.  We have had a great time giving them out at here at the clinic or delivering bags to our neighbors' apartments. Here are a few pics from the week.

Thank You 

Mercury Courts

Urban Housing Solutions

&

Vanderbilt School of Nursing

Holiday Food Drive Sponsored by Vanderbilt University School of Nursing

Quantez picking from
 a great selection

Ed and Beatriz having a Laugh

The Clinic at Mercury Courts and residence of Urban Housing Solutions had a great surprise over the Thanksgiving Holiday.  The staff at Vanderbilt School of Nursing delivered over 200 canned good and nonperishable food items to help celebrate the holidays with the residence of Mercury Courts.  The food drive was organized by the VUSN Staff Advisory Council and spearheaded by Sara Putman.  Thank you Sara and VUSN!  It was such a great day having everyone come through the clinic and visit.  It was a wonderful opportunity to talk about all the things we have to be thankful for over this past year. It reminded me of what a great community we have at Mercury Courts and how many friends we have made.  It is hard to believe that the clinic has already been open for over a year and a half.  We are still so thankful for the warm welcomes we receive every morning we come into work at the clinic.  Here are just a few of the pics from the day.

Joe and Charles 

A Personal Note to Our Volunteers

Charlotte Covington, MSN, FNP Checking Ears

It has just slowed down enough for me to write this, but you all have been on my mind over the last week.  I am so grateful to each one of you for your willingness to serve both with your time and with your hearts.  It was truly a rewarding experience for me to see everyone at work and to help so many families in the Napier Community last week. In total we saw over 55 elementary school students. These are students who were in danger of missing their first weeks of school if  you had not help with their physicals and immunization counseling. I was blown away by the variety of volunteers we had. They ranged from Assistant Dean Terri Crutcher, DNP and Assistant Professor Susie Leming-Lee DNP with VUSN to a variety of nursing, pharmacy, and physician assistant students. I was also overwhelmed by the amount of practicing faculty from VUSN that were willing to come on their own time to volunteer their valuable service. Thank you to Anna Richmond, MSN, FNP and Charlotte Covington, MSN, FNP for coming and a special shout out to The Clinic at Mercury Courts' very own Aaron Scott, MSN, FNP and Lauren Lakvold, DNP, FNP

I want to say a special thank you to Roberta Bradley, MSN, FNP who not only volunteered to serve at the event for two days but also volunteered to coordinate our NP volunteers and provide her pediatric expertise. Also on the administrative side, I would like to thank Whitney Hanor for coordinating the small army of PA students from Trevecca's Physician Assistance Program who volunteered.  I was very happy to hear about you all coming from Brittany Jewett. Thank you Brittany  for connecting us.

Another two people I would like to mention are Bruce Abbott and Whitney Piper from Lipscomb College of Pharmacy. They were there with us everyday using their expertise to counsel families on immunizations and to help them arrange compliance with Metro Schools. That was a tough job and I greatly appreciated you both for doing this and for doing such a remarkable job. 

Whitney Piper (Lipscomb) providing patient education 

and immunization Counseling

I would also be remiss if I did not thank Bryn Evans with VUSN and Neesha Hetcher, VUSN student, for their, behind the scene work ordering, developing content for,  and preparing the folders used at the event. Preparing and stuffing folders ahead of time was a big job, but it really helped us stay organized and on track throughout the week. Thank you! Neesha also volunteered an additional full day on Friday and represented VUSN very well. 

And lastly, I would like to thank Dr Pilon and the Vanderbilt School of Nursing for their vision in caring for communities through interprofessional practice, and their ongoing dedication to The Clinic at Mercury Courts. Without them, we would not have this platform from which to help anyone. Thank you, exceedingly. 

Again, I am personally grateful to everyone that came out over the week. Beware, I now have your emails and will not hesitate to call on you again for your help. You all did a phenomenal job and I look forward to our next big outreach event! The next big thing will be Project Homeless Connect 2014 so stay posted!

Introducing Mobile Care Coordination at The Clinic at Mercury Courts

You might have heard some rumors or even seen some of our tweets @MercuryClinic. Well the rumors are true! The Clinic at Mercury Courts has a new Mobile Care Coordination Program. We are bringing a piece of the clinic to you each week. To kick off the program, The Clinic at Mercury Courts team is visiting the different Urban Housing Solutions (UHS) properties and providing mini-health fairs. There are many residents who of UHS who will benefit from this program and we are excited to connect with them. We are planning to come to several properties over the next few months.

At these visits, members of the staff from The Clinic at Mercury Courts will be there to talk, take blood pressures, and you will be able to ask them questions about your health. Yesterday our volunteer nurse practitioner, Dr. Lauren Lakvold, DNP and UHS Health Advocate, Brittany Jewett were able to go and meet residents from Fisk Courts to initiate the process of primary care. It was a highlight to get to know everyone better. One resident we met was Lydia who heard about the Clinic, but had not been there yet. After discussing what The Clinic has to offer, she was excited to establish care there. (see photo below)

Lydia and Dr. Lakvold getting know each other at Fisk

This new program is more than just mini health fairs. The team from UHS and The Clinic are hoping to identify our most vulnerable residents and patients to provide the best care possible no matter if they can make it to the clinic or not. First, The Clinic’s staff recognizes that all the medical information can be complicated and hard to understand. If residents don’t understand what they are taking a specific medication for, or what going on in their health then the MCCD makes it easier than ever to get answers! Through a seamless process with UHS and The Clinic at Mercury Courts residents are connected to the services they need as quickly as possible. The Coordination team will also be there to provide care during a home visit. The staff understands that it is very difficult to get to The Clinic and the team is committed to meeting residents where they are.

The Clinic at Mercury Courts is very pleased to be starting this program for our community, and we look forward to growing it alongside Urban Housing Solutions. Keep an eye on our Facebook page for when the MCCS is coming to you! 

Come see us when we are near you or just come by and see us at 411 Murfreesboro Pike (in front of the Mercury Courts Complex). 

The Clinic at Mercury Courts

New Clinic Hours!

Monday 8 am to 7 pm

Tuesday –Friday 8 am – 4pm

Visit our Clinic Facebook Page to keep up to date:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Clinic-at-Mercury-Courts/141951872652704

Or follow us on Twitter:

Follow @MercuryClinic

BY: Lauren Lakvold DNP, Brittany Jewett,  and Christian Ketel, MSN