Technology Assists Family Practice Clinic in Providing Care While Enhancing Learning for DNP Students

Strayhorn Family Medical Clinic recently launched a telemedicine program to better care for its patients in the rural Mississippi River Delta region with assistance from University of

Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC). The clinic is located in Sarah, Mississippi, home to less than 3,000 residents and roughly 70 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee. Strayhorn Family Medical Clinic healthcare providers are receiving assistance from UTHSC to establish a provider-driven program with proven protocols to deliver care remotely.  The support and technical assistance is provided by an Advanced Nursing Education Workforce grant funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). The grant aims to educate and enhance the advanced nurse practitioner workforce to better meet the needs of residents in the rural areas of MS, TN, and AR by providing assistance to rural providers and facilitating training experiences for nurse practitioner students related to telehealth and rural health care.

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many rural clinics have struggled to provide care to their patients that have many times been too afraid to come into the clinic.  Robynn Ross, FNP, Strayhorn Family Medical Center stated, “We were treating patients in the parking lot in their cars. They were just too afraid to come inside so we took the care to them!” The clinic is relatively new and is still building its patient-base, however, in just 18-months the clinic has amassed more than 3,000 patients from the surrounding area. Ms. Ross continued, “Our patients come from all over; many are driving 40 and 50 miles just to get here.”

The UTHSC College of Nursing faculty partnered with Strayhorn Family Medical Clinic nurse practitioners to implement and facilitate telehealth for the benefit of the clinic patients, the surrounding community, and to provide telehealth learning experiences for nurse practitioner students rotating in this clinic. “When the COVID-19 pandemic began, many health care providers didn’t know where to begin regarding telehealth. I am so glad we are able to support rural nurse practitioners and clinics to better care for their patients and community. This is the beginning of a long partnership with these clinics,” stated Sarah Rhoads, PhD, DNP, WHNP-BC, FAAN, UTHSC Professor and Primary Investigator of the grant.

The clinic received a telemedicine cart in the fall of 2020 with peripheral devices to use with specialty consults into larger facilities. For example, a specialist can look into a patient’s eyes, ears, nose, and throat with a special camera on the telemedicine cart, and can also transmit heart and lung sounds to a remote specialist utilizing a digital streaming stethoscope. The clinic has hosted multiple patients so far and has several more scheduled to be seen from their homes for telemedicine visits and they are learning more every day on how the addition of technology can assist in providing care.   They are currently talking to Behavioral Health partners about how they can host patients from the clinic, especially those patients with transportation barriers or patients that are apprehensive about going into a behavioral clinic.  “We can host patients here in their hometown, so they don’t have to drive to Southaven, Mississippi or Memphis for their appointment,“ says Anita Golden, FNP. “Telemedicine gives us the ability to be able to provide that extra level of care when needed.“

While the clinic is in a remote area, providers do see quite a few trauma cases as well.  In the past 18-months, the clinic has cared for multiple trauma patients including gunshot victims and numerous farming accidents.  Ross says, “You never know what types of medical problems patients will have when they arrive at our clinic.  It’s comforting to know that with the simple dialing of a number on our telemedicine cart we can access a specialist if we need that extra level of support while triaging a patient.”

For clinics like Strayhorn Family Medical Clinic that are in rural areas and are currently seeing 40-50 patients each day, telemedicine is another tool to provide the care their patients’ need that they might not otherwise have access to. “We are so excited to see telemedicine used in our rural clinics. Our students have enjoyed the experiences and plan to take this knowledge of telehealth with them into practice”, says Karen Nellis, RN and Project Manager of HRSA Advanced Nursing Education Workforce.

In partnership with the South Central Telehealth Resource Center, UTHSC is developing a Telehealth Training Center in an effort to train, educate and assist more patients and providers with the advanced technology of Telehealth. If you would like more information regarding this project or the Telehealth Training Center, please contact Dr. Sarah Rhoads at srhoads@uthsc.edu or Karen Nellis at knellis@uthsc.edu.