SOAR Clinic Stays Nimble During Pandemic, Earns Gold Rating

Receiving a 2020 Gold Rating from the National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics means a lot to the SOAR Student-Run Free Clinic – and even more to its underserved patients. Meeting the mark for the NAFC 2020 Quality Standards Program confirms that Northeast Ohio Medical University’s student-run clinic provides the medically underserved with access to affordable, quality health care.

“This recognition is a direct result of the compassion and commitment of the students,” said Lacey Madison, M.B.A., M.Ed., the director of operations for the Department of Family and Community Medicine, which supports the SOAR clinic.

The challenges of providing care during the COVID-19 pandemic have led the SOAR clinic in new and transformational directions.

In April, fourth-year students from the College of Medicine had their schedules upended when the influx of COVID-19 and shortages of personal protection equipment (PPE) caused hospitals to send them home from their rotations. So, some NEOMED fourth-year students completed their last clinical rotation with clinical aspects of its own Student-Run Free Clinic. Four teams of students addressed areas of telemedicine, electronic medical records, behavioral health, and social media.

All four teams collectively worked on what is known as care gap management for the clinic’s existing patients – meaning that they worked to eliminate any practical barriers to care. The fourth-year students were able to contact 75 percent of the clinic’s current patients, according to SOAR Clinic manager Janet Raber, R.N. They updated demographic information, reconciled the patient’s medication lists and addressed health maintenance issues – all at the same time that they were transferring information from paper charts to electronic health records and instituting telehealth.

Although patients could not be seen in the clinic, the students increased their hours of service to four clinics a month on Saturdays, beginning in May. All clinic appointments are currently held by telephone.

Raber said, “We will continue to offer telehealth for those who want it and who have issues with transportation. We hope to return to on-site clinic visits sometime in July, depending on how the reopening of Ohio goes.”