The COVID-19 pandemic has changed our way of life. It’s also changed the way our hospital and clinics operate. Our caregiving teams have done an amazing job coming up with new ways to handle these changes. One example of this is the COVID to Home (C2H) clinic.
Headed up by our teams at both San Juan Health Partners Family Medicine locations, this clinic coordinates care and provides close monitoring to eligible COVID-19 patients who are either discharged home for self-isolation or do not need hospitalization through telemedicine visits. It has truly been a collaborative effort, with our providers reaching out to Vanderbilt University to adapt their Care Model to meet our patients’ needs. Through daily or every other day tele-health visits with a provider and follow up with a nurse, the C2H clinic is able to keep many COVID patients out of the hospital.
“I was able to keep one of my patients out of the hospital by initiating oxygen. She was very grateful and she was able to recover on her own,” Nurse Practitioner Rebekah French said. “Patients are scared. They are really grateful having somebody checking on them and answering their questions.”
The caregivers at the clinic are also ready to intervene when necessary to coordinate a higher level of care.
“The very first patient I started with, I couldn’t see him but I could hear he was in distress, he was breathing hard not able to speak without taking breaths. I immediately initiated EMS to go out there. He had an oxygen level of 69%. He was admitted to the hospital and he got discharged and now he has been discharged from the C2H clinic, so we are following up with him as a regular patient,” French said.
Right now there are about 125 patients actively enrolled in the clinic. It’s comforting for patients knowing that a medical provider is following up with them and they are not just being sent home with a COVID-19 diagnosis to deal with all on their own.
“We have a wide range of people, some are barely sick to others really sick who we are intervening and sending to the hospital,” said French. “It helps being able to provide some kind of comfort to let them know that they are not alone.”
Patients who do not have a primary care provider and want to enroll in the COVID to Home clinic can call 505.609.6284 to be screened for enrollment.