Evolve Behavioral Health Services
Healthy Connections
My Kids Pediatric Clinic

CALL US: 888.710.8220

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Evolve Behavioral Health Services
Healthy Connections
My Kids Pediatric Clinic

CALL US: 888.710.8220

Social Distancing … Why is it so important?

BY DR. CHRIS HOPKINSON

Social distancing is a term that you have probably heard a lot in the past couple of weeks. But, do you feel confident how to practice social distancing? Perhaps it feels unnecessary or overbearing for authorities to limit your movements. Today we’ll briefly explore social distancing, with some tips and some food for thought.

Why social distancing?

The coronavirus causing COVID-19 passes from person to person by either close contact, direct exposure to secretions, or shared surface contact. What does this mean?

  • Close contact: This is hard to define, but a good working rule is that close contact is spending 10 minutes or more within 6 feet another person
  • Direct exposure to secretions: Somebody coughs or sneezes on you, or near you! Nobody “nose” for sure, but experiments suggest that cough and sneeze particles can leave your face at upwards of 30mph, travel nearly 30 feet and linger in the air for several minutes. These particles are tiny, but not as tiny as a virus and therefore could contain a lot of virus
  • Shared surface contact: Somebody with the virus can touch their face, sneeze in their hands and fail to hand-wash effectively, or cough/sneeze near solid surfaces, leaving the surface contaminated with tiny amounts of respiratory secretions and large amounts of virus, which can survive for a prolonged period of time. You can pick the virus up by handling that surface and transfer it to your respiratory tract when eating or touching your face. Many surfaces pose a risk, but particularly those you can’t avoid touching, door handles, gas pumps, shopping carts, faucets, credit/debit card readers, chairs and armrests in waiting areas and public spaces

Your risk of acquiring COVID-19 is heavily influenced by your risk of exposure. When thinking about “who” and “what” you have been exposed to, you need also to think about who and what your contacts have been exposed to. The diagram below illustrates that our social contacts can be thought of as a web, with our risk of exposure going further than just the individuals with whom we have direct contact. The further out into that web you go, the more remote the risk. But the bigger the network, the larger the risk, especially if your first circle of contacts is large.

The COVID-19 illness is not wonderfully well understood, but it is likely that people shed virus (and may be infective) BEFORE they show signs of illness, and possibly for a short while AFTER they recover. Similarly, it appears likely that some people may not even develop symptomatic illness despite being infected and transmit the virus.

Keeping your network as small as possible limits your risk of exposure.

How to practice social distancing

Some rules of thumb:

  • As much as possible do not interact with people except those that you live with
  • Grocery shopping
    • Carry wipes and clean down your cart handle
    • Try to visit at off-peak times
    • Plan ahead – don’t linger in store
    • Maintain your distance at check out
    • Use alcohol gel to clean hands thoroughly on entering and exiting the store
  • At the gas station
    • Pay at the pump if at all possible
    • Use the gloves if provided
    • Clean your hands thoroughly with alcohol gel before and after using the pump
    • Wipe down your steering wheel frequently with appropriate cleaning wipes
  • If you feel sick
    • Contact us for advice
    • Do not leave the house (unless you are sick enough to need emergency medical care, of course)
    • Try to isolate yourself from family members who are well

Healthy Connections has more information on COVID-19 at www.healthy-connections.org/covid-19.

March 19 COVID-19 Update: Hand Washing 101

Here at Healthy Connections, we want to assure our family of patients that we are taking the current coronavirus threat seriously. Everybody has questions, many of us feel anxious about our health or that of loved ones, and all of us are living with uncertainty.

For the foreseeable future, we will be sharing brief posts here every few days with information to help keep you and your family safe.

Our website (www.healthy-connections.org/covid-19) will link to helpful resources and has information on symptoms to look out for and practices to reduce your risk of infection. These will be updated as the situation develops.

Top tips for safety today? Hand washing 101!

  • Wash like a pro
    • 20-30 seconds of lathering with plenty of soap and hot water, being sure to include finger web-spaces, the backs of your hands, under your nails, the pads of your fingers, the first part of your wrists
    • Keep your nails trimmed to make cleaning easier
    • Make it fun for kids – use foaming soap; sing a song; have a “most suds” or “fastest scrubbing” competition
    •  
  • Wash regularly
    • After touching your face; blowing your nose; using your cellphone, computer or tablet; using the restroom; eating meals; arriving home/at work; driving your car; physical contact with another person
    • Before eating or preparing food; leaving work/home

COVID-19 Screenings For All Clinic Patients, Visitors

In an effort to keep our patients and staff healthy, we are screening all patients before you enter a Healthy Connections clinic. A staff member will meet you at the door to take your temperature and ask you some screening questions related to COVID-ID infection. If a COVID-19 risk is identified, you will be directed to a designated area for further evaluation. Otherwise, you will proceed to check in with your visit as usual. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause. We will continue to post updates at www.healthy-connections.org/covid-19. #Coronavirus #Covid19

Malvern Clinic Moving in December

More exam rooms, state-of-the-art patient experience, convenient location, and Malvern students still get priority scheduling

Dear Healthy Connections Patient:

In 2016, Healthy Connections opened the Malvern clinic to great success at the Malvern School District Wellness Center. It has been our pleasure to serve as your healthcare provider since then. We appreciate and value your trust, and hope you will consider joining us in our new venture.

In order to ensure we continue to provide the best service to you, we are moving to a new location at 900 Martin Luther King Boulevard in Malvern. This location in Teeter Plaza will allow us to better serve the community with more exam rooms and a more patient-friendly, state-of-the-art environment.

Healthy Connections will continue to provide the same primary care/family medical, pediatrics, and mental and behavioral health therapy you have come to expect from us. We do not anticipate your care team changing with our physicians, advanced nurse practitioners, and therapists.  The clinic located at the College of the Ouachitas’ Health Center in Malvern will also remain open and available to see patients.

We were recently honored when Healthy Connections and the Malvern School District were presented with the Whole Child Award by the Arkansas School-Based Health Center initiative. This award is presented to school-based health centers that do a “great job assessing and serving the health, social, personal and emotional needs of students.”

We will continue to be available to care for Malvern School District students, giving them priority scheduling during school hours.

The Healthy Connections Community Health Network will continue to accept Medicaid, including ARKids First, Medicare, and most forms of health insurance. Additionally, we will continue to offer our sliding fee scale for patients without insurance. This sliding fee scale allows many to receive treatment who otherwise would not have been able to afford it.

For now, nothing will change. We will continue to provide high quality medical and behavioral health care at the Malvern School District Wellness Center at 1517 South Main St. At some point in December, we will finalize our moving date.

We encourage you to visit www.healthy-connections.org/malvern for more information. We’ll continue to provide updates there as we make arrangements for our grand opening.

Thank you for choosing Healthy Connections.

 

Tony Calandro

Chief Executive Officer

Healthy Connections, Inc.

New Clinic at COTO in Malvern

Healthy Connections, Inc., is proud to announce a partnership with College of the Ouachitas in Malvern for a primary care health clinic.

The clinic, which will be housed in the main COTO building, will feature an Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN) to see patients on Tuesdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. during summer hours.

At the College of the Ouachitas Health Center, students will be given first priority for appointments. However, the public is also able to receive treatment. Healthy Connections accepts Medicaid, including ARKids First, Medicare, and most health insurances. There is also a sliding fee scale for patients without health insurance, based on eligibility.

To make an appointment, call (888) 710-8220 or request an appointment online at www.healthy-connections.org/appointment. When arriving for an appointment, report to the Student Affairs office at the main building. After check-in there, patients will be escorted to the Healthy Connections clinic for treatment.

College of the Ouachitas marks the third school-based health center operated by Healthy Connections, which also operates the health clinics at the Mount Ida Elementary and High Schools, and Ouachita River Health Center at Acorn School in Mena.

In all, Healthy Connections operated 10 clinics throughout southwest and south central Arkansas, including locations in Mena, Hot Springs, Malvern, Arkadelphia, Mount Ida, and DeQueen. Healthy Connections is a federally qualified health center and a part of Community Health Centers of Arkansas. Each of these clinics offers family medicine and primary care services. Some also offer behavioral health therapy and dental services.

Some locations also offer specialty services through Healthy Connections Specialty. Depending on location, these services include Cardiology, Podiatry, Physical Therapy, Chiropractic, and joint injections.

College of the Ouachitas (COTO) is a comprehensive, public, two-year institution of higher education in Malvern, Arkansas, providing accessible, high-value associate degrees and certificates in a quality academic environment that is focused on both student success and the economic development needs of the communities it serves. The College offers more than 50 programs of study in academic, career and technical disciplines to approximately 3,500 credit, non-credit, adult education (three sites—Hot Spring, Clark and Grant Counties) and workforce students,  while serving the culturally and economically diverse populations in the five-county service area of Hot Spring, Saline, Clark, Grant and Dallas Counties.

Learn more at www.healthy-connections.org.