Filling a niche: Medical clinic uses technology to speed services

Getting sick on Saturday does not necessarily mean sitting for hours in the emergency room to see a doctor.

Prime Care Medical Clinic will open Monday at 1014 Harkrider Street, behind Sav On Drugs. Dr. J.P. Wornock said the clinic will be staffed with physicians, nurse practitioners and physician's assistants.

Wornock said he does not feel the clinic is competing with other doctors in the area but rather filling a niche by giving people a place to go rather than the emergency room when their doctor is booked or it is after hours. He said the clinic also looks for ways to use technology to make each patient's visit go more quickly.

"My goal is that everyone is in and out in 35 minutes," he said.

Prime Care Medical Clinic has a location in Searcy where for four years Wornock and his staff have developed this model, he said.

One idea is, "If 10 people walk in at once, we take the last six and say, give us your cell phone number and go shop."

Patients are happy not to have to sit in the waiting room, he maintained.

The clinic uses no paper charts but does everything by computer. Wornock said he can, from the exam room, send a fax by computer to the patient's primary care physician if the patient needs a follow-up visit in 10 days, and he can fax their prescription to their pharmacy before they leave the clinic.

Business manager Eric Booth said, "What we'd like your experience to be is you were surprised how quickly you were seen."

They are also working on getting common prescriptions by name and amount already in stock and ready with pharmacies in town, "So it's ready before you're ever a patient except for the label," said Booth.

Booth said patients are sometimes stunned when Wornock says they need a shot and a nurse suddenly appears with the needle in hand. Wornock uses instant messaging to summon a nurse to the exam room, thus saving time.

"We're looking for that 'wow' factor," he said.

Wornock said he and Booth have visited with several clinics in town and told doctors they want to honor the relationships they have with their patients.

"They were amazingly receptive," he said. "It gives their patients another option besides the emergency room."

When a patient calls after hours, he said, "As a physician, it takes away that hard decision of, 'Is this bad enough for them to go sit in the emergency room?'"

The clinic will initially be open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. As the need grows, they plan to expand their hours, Wornock said.

(Staff writer Rachel Parker Dickerson can be reached by e-mail at rachel.dickerson@thecabin.net or by phone at 505-1277. Send us your news at www.thecabin.net/submit)