AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) - A long-awaited dream for Augusta University College of Nursing Dean Lucy Marion has finally become a reality.
The Augusta Chronicle reports on Friday, university President Brooks Keel, Marion and others cut the ribbon on the school’s Nurse-Managed Health Center, a dream Marion has had since she became dean in 2004.
“You’ve been looking forward to this for a few days?” Keel said jokingly. “A few decades?”
“It took Dean Marion’s vision and aggressiveness, of staying on top of things, pushing this and making the best case on this,” Keel said.
The clinic will offer not only primary care but also advanced nursing care, working with partners at the hospital and clinics and specialists there, said Assistant Dean J. Dwayne Hooks Jr., who helped plan it over the past two years.
The clinic can play a role in the prevention and management of chronic conditions, but it can also offer telehealth and advanced nursing care that can be critical with patients in transition from a hospital to a nursing home, for instance, which Marion called “such a dangerous time” for patients.
The difference in a nurse-run clinic is that the nurses make the decisions instead of deferring to a doctor, said Tranika Brown, who will be the center’s full-time nurse practitioner.
The differences to patients could be subtle but very real. The nurse could be more in tune with the patient, and “we’re often more in-depth,” she said. “We don’t just treat you for the one condition.”
For instance, many chronic conditions such as diabetes are often accompanied by another, such as heart disease, Brown said. “They’re all intertwined,” she said.
The center is now open at 987 St. Sebastian Way, Suite 1500 in Augusta. The clinic is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays except for Thursday, when it is open from noon to 8:30 p.m. For more information, call 706-721-1225.
The center is just part of the legacy Marion will leave behind this year after she steps down as dean, a move she has delayed to give the school time to find her replacement.
“This is kind of the cherry on top,” Provost Gretchen Caughman said.
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Information from: The Augusta Chronicle , http://www.augustachronicle.com
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