Nurse-managed primary care centers provide vital community-based health services, often to community residents most vulnerable for health problems because of age, income, and other sociocultural factors. In an era when maximizing revenue is of utmost importance to the sustainability of nursing centers, nurse managers face difficult decisions when allocating resources for more population-focused primary health care to vulnerable populations when third party reimbursement is derived from primary care to individuals. This presentation will explore how the terms primary care and primary health care differ according to the literature, even though the terms are often used interchangeably. Moreover, the purpose of this presentation is to analyze how four different nurse-managed health centers incorporate population-focused primary health care concepts in busy practices where primary care is the major focus, and where revenue for clinic operations is based on primary care encounters. The health centers include a rural health clinic, a university student health center, a rural school-based health center, and a clinic for homeless and indigent. Three of the nurse-managed health care centers have provided advanced practice nursing care to vulnerable clients for ten years or longer. Case study data derived from secondary data and key informant interviews will be analyzed to identify barriers and facilitators of incorporating and sustaining population-focused primary health care strategies in primary care settings as a means of improving the health of communities.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session, the participant in this session will be able to: 1) differentiate between primary care, primary health care, and community-oriented primary care; 2) develop two strategies to incorporate population-focused interventions in nurse-managed primary care centers 3) apply concepts of primary health care and community-oriented primary care in practices where clinic revenue is based on individual primary care interventions.
Keywords: Primary Care, Community-Based Health Care
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: The nurse-managed primary care centers discussed in this paper are managed by the College of Nursing at East Tennessee State University.
Disclosure not received
Relationship: Not Received.