10-12 hour days, five days a week and a few hours on a weekend were not part of this plan… It was going to remain a balance between practice time and my time… But admittedly it’s got away on me this year! Some would say but practice time IS “my”…
This is how it goes….. Home visit to a rest home resident on the way to work. Saw the patient and then spoke to the RN and charted some medication, back to the resident to inform her of what I have changed. Discussed next follow up. Off to work. The…
Professional Supervision (PS): For me professional supervision is about sharing experiences and thoughts about difficulties or complex situations with someone who is trained to provide qualified advice on the “how to” work things through, see things differently and aid me in working out the solutions. It is not a winge session,…
We have had undergraduates at the practice over the past four years. These have been 2nd year students from Otago Polytech doing a Health Promotion project based on the Pleasant Point Health Center community. They have produced some amazing work with the product being a tool that we as clinicians…
Keeping up-to-date I regularly spend time with the GP while he/she is in the clinic. We will go over cases I want advice on, blood test results, plans I have for patients and want reassurance that I am not missing anything or need to include. I have recently spent a…
Funding Streams: We access what funding streams are available for the patients. These include: Under 25 Sexual health, Care Plus (multiple conditions requiring intensive input), Brief Intervention Services (mental health), Diabetes Foot Assessments and Diabetes encounter program (newly diagnosed, re-engagement, initiation of insulin), Palliative care and Free Cervical Smears (>5 yrs…
Team work is the answer to all forms of health care delivery – and at Pleasant Point Health Center we aim to do that by working closely to gain the best from each clinician. Standard practice means 15 minute appointments for myself as lead clinician. Patients are encouraged to make…
Does it really matter who owns the General Practice (GP)business? Yes. No. Maybe… I realise that I was potentially misleading readers by referring to the ownership of the General Practice ‘business’ in this blog! It isn’t necessarily about owning the practice… So I started asking the question “does it really…
The importance of collaborative practice is no more important than when running a NP led general practice! Ideally I’d have one ‘on tap’ in times of need, however that need is very varied and not all day every day, so I’ve had to find innovative ways of working this, to…
Barriers: Once the back to back agreement was in place it was then time to rearrange or in some cases discover other contracts with ACC, Maternity (section 88) . The initial barriers included not being able to sign off certain ACC forms, medical certificates, insurance medicals (for some organisations) Drivers licenses,…
