Lorain County General Health District

The Lorain County General Health Department has provided many opportunities since starting in September.  Morgan and I have been involved with newborn visits, child services visit, immunization clinics, WIC, communicable diseases, environmental services, the Bureau for Children with Medical Handicaps (BCMH)  and the adult health clinic.  Initially, we worked at the health department in order to understand the operations of community heath at a health department.  We used the first two weeks primarily to do home visits for newborns, children's services and BCMH visits.  In this time we established that we are going to be working with the adult health population for our project and for the majority of our community health capstone.

The second week into our capstone rotation, we were involved with our first immunization clinic at the health department.  This was particularly good training for the upcoming flu clinic that we were involved with at the Lorain County Fairgrounds in Wellington.  At both of these clinics, the staff members at the Lorain County General Health Department have been very welcoming and have helped ensuring that we are comfortable with what we are doing. 

The Adult health Clinic has been a very good population to work with over the past few weeks.  We started with a potential identified problem of medication adherence and through surveys, we have determined that the medication issues that are current problems are not with adherence, rather the lack of a consistent and feasible documentation method.  Through our survey and interactions with the clients and nurses, we have found a plan to improve the way that medications are handled at the Adult Health Clinic.  With evidence based practice showing that brown bag methods of determining how and what medication patients are taking, a seasonal schedule for assessing.  We have also creeated a new screening tool for every appointment in order to quickly identify risks for medication non-adherence and also as a way to ensure that resources that may be needed are being allocated appropriately.  We have also had the opportunity to address resource needs in order to make the implementation of this plan a success.

The semester at Lorain County General Health District has been a positive experience so far and I am eager to continue working with the Adult Health Clinic and make an impact in the care that is given with medications.