“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;”>Youngsters needing health services in North St. Louis County now enjoy a bright, spacious, kid-friendly site that was built as a modern, energy-efficient space with their dignity and comfort in mind at Betty Jean Kerr People’s Health Center on West Florissant Avenue.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“It’s a beautiful facility,” said Dwayne Butler, CEO at People’s. “It’s as green as we could get it and it’s just aesthetically pleasant, so we are very excited about it.”
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>The new pediatric wing at the facility opened for business on Valentine’s Day. It’s approximately 4,500 square feet that is brightly decorated, with state-of-the-art equipment.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“We went from five exam rooms to nine exam rooms and a procedure room, just in pediatrics, and that’s awesome,” said Vickie Wade, vice president of clinical administration at PHC.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Funding to expand the facility and its health services is a result of federal stimulus funds for community health, with U.S. Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay receiving credit from People’s.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“Congressman Clay was very supportive in making sure we had available resources for a very vulnerable population,” Butler said.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“It was really seamless; it was on schedule, under budget and just a perfect project, in my mind.”
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Butler
said the
pediatric build-out at the North County site cost about $700,000.
The funding also allowed People’s to hire providers to offer
walk-in, open-access health services at its West Florissant and
Delmar sites.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>The new North County facility is equipped for kid-sized vision and hearing testing, and children with asthma who used to wind up in area emergency rooms can receive treatment at People’s.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“We see a lot of asthmatics, and we are able to do our own breathing treatments here on site rather than sending them to the hospital,” Wade said.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>The layout of each area is a self-contained pod, with its own registration desk where insurance verifications and appointments are made.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>The Women, Infants and Children’s nutrition program known as WIC is one of those areas, with three nutrition counselors and an active breastfeeding education program.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“We have two lactation consultants, and they are pretty busy,” Wade said.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Nurses have an area where they can discreetly counsel patients.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>The new expansion also allowed People’s to meet the growing demand for other health services at the site, by using the old pediatric area to create more patient and treatment rooms for internal medicine and obstetrics.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“We are already seeing tremendous growth in our patient population in North County,” Butler said. “It will increase general capacity and our ability to get patients in and out much more efficiently.”
“mso-spacerun: yes;”>
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Between the three People’s locations, Butler said they deliver about 60-70 babies each month.
“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;”>
“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; color: black;”> Mark Sanford, executive vice president of “font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>People’s Health Center “font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; color: black;”>, said about 40 percent of the center’s nearly 37,000 patients are treated at the North County site, representing a 30 percent increase at the facility.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“We have an underserved population, oftentimes one that is uninsured or underinsured, and oftentimes in our communities we don’t have state-of-the-art facilities for that population,” Butler said.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“And we’re able to serve in that capacity and in a fashion that I think anyone can be proud of. We are not only serving the body when we are dealing with medicine, we are also serving the soul.”
