Happy Holidays

We are coming into the holiday season strong. We have more than doubled patients seen per month since August.  To say thank you to the residents of Mercury Courts and our patients for being so welcoming to us, we are giving everyone a special holiday gift bag. Thank you to the Vanderbilt School of Nursing for donating over 200 gift bags full of great stuff!! We are so happy to be an active member in the community.

The Vanderbilt Nurse Magazine wrote a great story about the clinic  in it's latest installment. Click Here to view read it.  We aren't running any special programs for the month but we are happy to reach out to Nashville's homeless folks. We are continuing offering free visits to anyone homeless who needs the care.  I would also like to thank the organizers of Nashville's Boulevard Bolt and everyone who participated on Thanksgiving Day.  The money we are receiving is going directly to the care of homeless people that are coming into the clinic. Thank you, Thank you, and Thank you, again.

Hope everyone has a Happy Holiday Season!

Dispensary of Hope and other things.

We are very excited to get or Dispensary of Hope up and running.  What a blessing to our patients.  We are able to provide many chronic care medications directly to our patients and not have to worry if they will be unable to pay for or pick up their meds.  It is a relief to them and us both.

We are also wrapping up our first Bi-Annual Women's Health Week this week.  It has been fairly successful. We always want to help more people. We still have tomorrow and Saturday Morning to go, so....all you women out there come on in!!

Another upcoming event we are very happy to participate in is the Project Homeless Connect 2013. We have never been a part of it but are planning to offer all kinds of stuff. Health Screenings and counseling. We are again collaborating with our friends at Urban Housing Solutions here in Nashville. They will be educating and answering questions about public housing and talking applications!!

Thanks to everyone who has helped and volunteered for theWomen's Event  and can't wait till spring for the next one.

Growing!

Growing everyday. Things are still slower than we would like, but people are coming!!!! We are so excited.  We have been giving out flu shots for the last week and a half and that has brought some wonderful folks into the clinic.

A few things going on this week....

We are also planning on having a Women's Health Event next month. The tentative dates are Nov 16-17th. It is short notice, but anything we can do to get more awareness for the clinic and people in the doors is a good thing.  We have a few provider volunteers for the event but could use more.  We will be    doing a complete physical and counseling including Pap for $25 (cost of the lab only).

The Contributor, a wonderful local Nashville paper that specifically address local issues effecting our homeless community, is doing a story on our clinic.  What an honor. It is also nice to have one more friend in Nashville. More Info on The Contributor

Our interdisciplinary learning students have really stepped up this past week as well. They have been canvassing the neighborhood encouraging patients to come in the clinic...hey we are not proud...they are very enthusiastic and free!! Love our students.

For anyone into medical tech stuff, our Interface with our lab vendor, LabCorp will be up and running by the end of the week I hope. I also plan on doing a survey at some point soon to see if a patient portal would be well received or not. Then see if we can get it paid for of course.

The Clinic at Mercury Courts

The Clinic at Mercury Courts is a Nurse Managed Health Center established by Vanderbilt University School of Nursing in collaboration with Urban Housing Solution, a not for profit housing organizations providing affordable, permanent housing for low income and recently homeless individuals and families. Our ongoing goal is to provide a stabilizing influence for this often neglected and overlooked part of the Nashville community while also educating our next generation of healthcare providers. We are accomplishing this by utilizing a holistic and collaborative healthcare model incorporating the disciplines of nursing, medicine, pharmacy, social service and the individual as equal partners on the healthcare team.

We have had our doors open for only 3 months but already, we can tell this is going to be a great experience. Everybody has been great are almost having to turn away volunteers and supported...Almost.  It has been very encouraging all the support we have gotten. In fact, just last week our clinic was able to collaborate with the Vanderbilt Center for Integrative Heath, Shade Tree Clinic, and Mission Point to co-sponsor the Nashville Premier of Escape Fire:The Fight to Rescue American Health Care.  It was a wild success!!! The film was excellent (I saw it twice already) and the post discussion was very enlightening.  I particularly enjoyed seeing the interactions between the different health disciplines. It gave me quite a bit of needed hope for health cares future. 

In fact, it reminded me of what we are doing at the Clinic at Mercury Courts.  This Clinic is starting from a base of interdisciplinary practice like I have rarely seen in 15 years of clinical practice. My continued hope is that we will be one of many catalysts that spark new life into the American healthcare system.