Frontier Nursing Clinics Update

Frontier Nursing Service Quarterly Bulletin, Fall 2003 by Marfell, Julie

The grand opening of the new Kate Ireland Healthcare Center was held October 17th, 2003. The Manchester Chamber of Commerce officially welcomed us to the community. The Chamber members extended their thanks and offered their support in our mission of providing health care to the Manchester community and area. The Chamber of Commerce members, members from the FNS Board of Governors, faculty, staff and patients attended the open house. Refreshments were served and flu shots were given to those that requested them including several of our FNS board members.

We are very excited to be implementing an electronic patient management system and medical record at all of the clinics. We will begin training in January for the medical record system. All of our patient records will be converted to an electronic record. This means we will no longer be relying on paper charts. This switch will allow us to better organize our records and we will no longer have to search for files. It will also help us analyze what types of patients we are seeing. This analysis will help us plan better to meet the needs of our patients and communities that we serve.

I had the opportunity to attend the Rural Health Clinic Association Conference in Washington, DC. This association is a national organization composed of rural health clinics. There are 3,477 rural health clinics nationwide with the majority of locations being in the Midwestern and Southeastern states. Kentucky has 90 clinics. Thirty- three percent of rural health clinics are located in medically underserved areas. Rural health clinics are viewed as safety net providers serving Medicare, Medicaid and vulnerable populations in rural areas. Our clinics are part ofthat safety net. Our percentage of Medicare, Medicaid and charitable care is comparable to other rural health clinics nationwide.

One of the activities at the conference was to meet with our senators and congressmen to discuss current issues that affect rural health clinics. Our Kentucky group went to Capitol Hill and met with representatives from Senator Mc Connell, Senator Running and Congressman Rogers offices. all of our issues were heard and supported by all three of our representatives.

I would like to thank all of our donors for the response to the Christmas appeal. The clinics appreciate your continued support and plan to keep that star shining brightly.

by Dr. Julie Marfell, Executive Director