Kimberly Becher, a family practitioner in Clay, West Virginia, population 491, says her rural county never had a local hospital. The nearest acute care facilities are all about an hour away in five different directions. Some of those hospitals are cutting back while others are trying to gear up their service offerings. Her practice in Clay, which includes two nurse practitioners and a physician assistant, is part of Community Care of West Virginia, a Federally Qualified Health Center with 15 community clinics, school-based programs, and pharmacies.
Becher strives to provide an integrated medical practice with such innovations as a community health worker and weekly home doctor visits, which sometimes require traversing challenging dirt roads. "A lot of what I do is keeping people out of the hospital," she says. "We provide a lot of care typically only done in hospitals. If I didn't have solid hospital and emergency medical training, I don't think I could do this job."
To read the entire article on Medscape, click here.
Becher strives to provide an integrated medical practice with such innovations as a community health worker and weekly home doctor visits, which sometimes require traversing challenging dirt roads. "A lot of what I do is keeping people out of the hospital," she says. "We provide a lot of care typically only done in hospitals. If I didn't have solid hospital and emergency medical training, I don't think I could do this job."
To read the entire article on Medscape, click here.
RSS Feed
