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St. Martin Hospital receives grant to expand after-hours primary care access

Date: 06/03/19

Breaux Bridge, LA – St. Martin Hospital, a non-profit critical access hospital located in Breaux Bridge, La., has received a one-year grant from Louisiana Healthcare Connections that will enable the facility to provide expanded after-hours and weekend access to primary care services via its walk-in community health clinic.

“St. Martin Hospital is committed to serving our Medicaid population in a clinic setting that provides the necessary care management,” says St. Martin Hospital CEO Karen Wyble, RN, MSN, MHA, MBA. “In order to meet the needs of our families, we must provide accessibility to care, which involves 24/7 coverage. Louisiana Healthcare Connections has partnered with St. Martin Hospital’s Community Health Clinic with grant funding to assist with the costs of providing Family Nurse Practitioners allowing us to extend hours of services. Our goal is to shift our non-emergent Medicaid families out of the emergency rooms to the appropriate clinic setting for care management 24/7.” 

The communities served by the St. Martin Parish facility include medically underserved, low income and minority populations, according to a 2016 Community Health Needs Assessment, making the increased availability of primary care services an important need for the parish.

“St. Martin Hospital shares our commitment to reducing non-emergent use of the Emergency Room by increasing access to high quality primary care,” says Joseph Tidwell, Vice President of Network & Contracting for Louisiana Healthcare Connections. “We are pleased to partner with St. Martin Hospital in making these services more readily available to Medicaid enrollees.”