1. What is your role/position with NHCLV and which location do you work at? How long have you worked for the organization?
I am an RN Care Manager with a focus on assisting refugee patients and elderly patients. I work at the clinic at Casa Guadalupe in Allentown and have worked there for 3 years.
2. Why do you think an FQHC is important in caring for members of the Lehigh Valley community?
Everybody is worthy of convenient, quality health care. Being an FQHC allows NHCLV to provide convenient high quality health care in underserved neighborhoods regardless of income or ability to pay.
3. What’s the most important thing you have learned working for an FQHC?
There are so many people with so many health care needs.
4. What do you love most about your job?
The opportunity to help patients understand the health care system as a whole by assisting them with specialist appointments, how to get labs and imaging studies done, how to receive and use medications as prescribed and explaining the reasons for and results of all these things. In other words, the opportunity to bring a fragmented health care system back together again and assist patients in understanding their health conditions, interventions and treatments.
5. What one piece of advice do you have for patients when it comes to caring for their health?
Just try and don’t give up. Our medical system is complicated and frustrating for everyone, but you can learn to improve your health and navigate the system if you do so slowly, little by little and don’t give up!