News / The Northern Virginia Daily/nvdaily.com
Community clinic adds Thursday hours
Extra funding from Valley Health helps facility offer more patient appointments
By Kim Walter -- kwalter@nvdaily.com
FRONT ROYAL -- St. Luke Community Clinic has expanded its hours, offering patient appointments from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Thursdays.
Before starting the new hours last month, appointments were only offered Monday through Wednesday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., said Executive Director Glenn Burdick.
Burdick said additional funding was needed for the extended hours, and it came from Valley Health. The new Thursday hours required eight hours of pay for a nurse practitioner and registered nurse, he said. The clinic is only partially paid staff, with about 50 active volunteers, Burdick said.
"It seems to be going very well," Burdick said of the Thursday hours, adding that the expansion has allowed for 16 patients to make regular appointments.
The nonprofit clinic provides free medical care to qualifying low-income residents, who have both acute and chronic conditions.
"The emergency room needs to be reserved for just that -- emergencies," Burdick said. Instead of clogging up the hospital's emergency room, patients with chronic conditions are steered to the clinic instead, he said.
Because many residents cannot afford health insurance or have lost jobs with benefits, the need for the clinic has continued to grow.
"We perform a vital function," said Burdick. Last year, he says the clinic saw just under 1,000 patients, with one-third of them being Type 2 diabetics.
While the Thursday hours are open to all patients, Burdick says they will allow the clinic to do a better job following up with chronic diabetics.
"This over time is very beneficial," he said. After diabetics to go in for lab work, the added appointments give clinic employees more time to go over results with patients so they can make necessary adjustments, he said.
Though Burdick said that workload had slightly increased due to more referrals and follow-ups to schedule, he said it's worth it, because now there's a better chance of not only treating existing diabetics, but also of diagnosing pre-diabetics.
For more information on St. Luke Community Clinic, call 636-4325 or visit the website at www.saintluke
clinic.org.
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