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

TeleHealth Appointments Now Available

Many Healthy Connections providers are now offering telehealth e-visit appointments during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As social distancing and stay home recommendations continue to increase, Healthy Connections TeleHealth will bridge the healthcare gap and allow patients to see their provider of choice from the comfort of their own home.

Healthy Connections, a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), has medical clinics in Mena, Hot Springs, Little Rock, Malvern, Arkadelphia, De Queen, and Mount Ida. These clinics offer primary care medical and behavioral health services and accept Medicaid, ARKids 1st, Medicare, and most health insurance. They also offer a sliding-fee scale for people without insurance who qualify.

Healthy Connections clinics remain open and are seeing some patients at the clinic. And everyone who enters the clinic is screened for flu, strep, and COVID-19 symptoms. This measure has been taken for the health and safety of both our patients and staff.

TeleHealth provides an alternative method for patients to have their appointment with their provider without having to leave home. These visits are done using video conferencing website Zoom (www.zoom.us). Patients can schedule appointments by:

Once the appointment is scheduled, they will be emailed a telehealth consent agreement that can be filled out on a computer, tablet, or smartphone. The patient will receive an appointment link via their email address.

At the time of their appointment, patients will use their computer, tablet, or smartphone to click the link and join the appointment with their provider. Complete step-by-step instructions can be found at www.healthy-connections.org/telehealth.

COVID-19 Update for Healthy Connections Clinics

Artistic 3D illustration of the coronavirus

Healthy Connections clinics remain open during the COVID-19 outbreak. However, we have made some operational changes to many of our locations to help ensure the safety of our patients and staff members.

  • All persons entering a Healthy Connections clinic must be screened before they enter. This includes both patients and staff. Those who are not feeling well or who fail the screening process will be either sent to a designated treatment location or back to their car to receive treatment.
  • Healthy Connections can test for COVID-19. However, it is not appropriate to test everyone who has symptoms. If you are determined to have the flu or COVID-19 symptoms, you will be tested first for flu and then for strep. If those come back negative, you may then be given a COVID-19 test.
  • Our Healthy Connections dental clinics in Mena and Hot Springs are now open 9 a.m. to noon Monday through Thursday for emergency procedures only. The American Dental Association has recommended this change and we are complying with their requests.
  • If you are picking up prescriptions at the Mena clinic pharmacy, you must call the pharmacy upon your arrival. They will bring your prescriptions out to you. No patients will be allowed to visit the pharmacy area of the clinic.
  • The Arkadelphia clinic will now see only OBGYN patients. We have moved Veronica Cannon, APRN, to the Malvern clinic and all primary care/family medicine patients will be seen there. This step has been taken to ensure the health and safety of our pregnant mothers.
  • No patients are currently being seen at the school-based health centers at Acorn, Mount Ida and ASU-Three Rivers in Malvern. Patients in these communities will be seen at:
    • Healthy Connections Mena: 136 Health Park Lane, Mena
    • Healthy Connections Mount Ida: 534 Luzerne St., Mount Ida
    • Healthy Connections Malvern: 900 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Malvern
  • We are finalizing our process to allow for telehealth/e-visits with your providers. All patients who participate in telehealth/e-visits will need to fill out and return a consent form. Please watch for more information soon.
  • The Hot Springs Chippewa clinic location (1723 Malvern Ave., Hot Springs) will be closed on Friday, March 27. Patients will be seen that day at the Central Avenue location (3604 Central Ave.). The Chippewa clinic will re-open on Monday, March 30.

Healthy Connections is committed to the health and well-being of our staff, patients and visitors. Please bear with us during these times of change and remember that all of these policies are subject to change when new information becomes available.

Please remember to keep checking our COVID-19 page at www.healthy-connections.org/covid-19 for the latest information and tips from our trusted healthcare professionals.

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.

We Are Open and Seeing Patients

The Healthy Connections non-profit Federally Qualified Health Center in your community remains open during the Coronavirus outbreak. We want you to know we are taking all precautions to ensure the safety of both our patients and staff. We will screen everyone who enters the building and limit the number of people actually entering the building whenever possible.

We want to remind everyone to please practice social distancing during this time. Please call (888) 710-8220 if you have any questions. Or visit www.healthy-connections.org/covid-19.

There are only a couple of exceptions right now:

  • Both dental clinics in Mena and Hot Springs are now open 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday through Thursday for emergency procedures only.
  • All three school-based clinics (ASU-Three Rivers, Acorn School, and Mount Ida schools) are temporarily closed. We are seeing patients at the Healthy Connections community location in each of these areas (Malvern, Mena, and Mount Ida).
  • And clinics in Arkadelphia and Little Rock are not open on Friday staying with their regular schedule.

For a complete list of locations and their operating hours, please visit www.healthy-connections.org/locations.

 

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