St. Anthony clinic offers patients ‘a helping hand'

Five months after opening, the Access to Care clinic at St. Anthony Hospital is giving routine medical care to patients who otherwise would visit its emergency room repeatedly.

Pam Troup, executive director of St. Anthony North and organizer of the low-cost clinic, said 53 percent of visits to Oklahoma County emergency rooms in 2005 were for routine medical care. That year, St. Anthony counted 900 people who had visited its emergency room five or more times. Because emergency room care is expensive, intended to save people's lives and doesn't emphasize follow-up care, non-emergency patients are better served if they see primary care doctors.

However, in areas such as near-downtown St. Anthony, northeast-side OU Medical Center and south-side Integris Southwest, patients often don't have insurance or a go-to doctor, sending them to the emergency room instead.

"If we can do prevention and early intervention, then we can not only decrease the financial cost but the human cost,” Troup said. "They're already coming to us. They're already in our emergency room,” she said, describing clinic patients as chronically ill people who were doing the best they could and typically live near the hospital. Clinic patients' two most frequent diagnoses are high blood pressure and diabetes.

"The emergency room is good care,” she said.

"It's just not appropriate for someone who needs primary care.”

St. Anthony in April received $200,000 from the Butterfield Memorial Foundation to establish a "medical home” for patients who visit its emergency room for non-emergency reasons.

St. Anthony also received $50,000 from the Oklahoma City Community Foundation for the same purpose. OU Medical Center and Integris Southwest also received $50,000 each from the community foundation to establish medical homes.

Patients at the St. Anthony clinic, which has 112 patients, pay a flat rate for an appointment at the clinic, which is staffed by an advanced registered nurse practitioner and used to be a dental clinic. A "community health worker” helps patients navigate the federal, state and local assistance that may be available and reminds them of appointments and keeping to their treatment instructions.

"You just need a helping hand sometimes to get all that done,” Troup said.

Nanette Shakula had just finished her appointment at the clinic on a recent Thursday morning. The woman, who lives on NW 34, said she lost her state-provided insurance when her daughter turned 18, and she wasn't able to work because of lung problems. She has a disability case pending. After an August surgery at St. Anthony, the hospital suggested she try the Access clinic. She comes once a week now.

"I used to walk 20 miles a day and now I can't walk a block without stopping,” she said. "I can't work. I can't breathe.”