Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008

Growing hospital clinic adds Greiner

by Kenneth Lassiter

A Topeka native has brought his physician’s skills to the new medical clinic at Jefferson County Memorial Hospital in Winchester as hospital officials hope to continue to build up the fledgling clinic.

Will Greiner, MD, started work at the clinic Sept. 1 after a stint at the Atchison Hospital. He has been a doctor for three years after receiving his medical degree from the University of Kansas. His main cohort at the JCMH clinic is physician’s assistant Sue Quirk, who met Greiner while working at the Atchison Hospital and has been with JCMH since November 2006.

The clinic’s hours of operation are from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday, from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday, from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Wednesday and from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Friday. Quirk, who has been working at the clinic since it started up in May, said they are hoping to expand to Saturday hours in coming weeks.

Quirk said the clinic was the idea of new JCMH CEO LaMont Cook. She and another physician’s assistant got the clinic opened with the help of JCMH chief of staff Dr. John Eplee in May while more help was sought. Quirk remembered Greiner from Atchison and felt they had a good working relationship, so he was brought into the fold.

“I knew Sue through working with her in the emergency room at Atchison,” Greiner said. He lives with his wife and two daughters, ages 14 and 9, in northwest Kansas City. “She sent me a letter telling me about the Winchester clinic and I decided to look into it.”

Quirk said she felt Greiner would be a good fit at Winchester.

“I had heard he might be available, and we had worked well together at Atchison,” said Quirk, who lives in Valley Falls and is a native of Ohio. “I just thought he’d be a good person for it. Really, I think it was a little bit of fate. We were looking for the right person and he fit and was willing to come here.”

Greiner officially joined JCMH on Sept. 1 and has spent the first couple weeks on the job settling in and enjoying a shorter commute.

“It’s closer to home, which is good,” Greiner said with a chuckle. “It’s a little quicker than it was going to Atchison.”

Quirk said the clinic has been building up a patient base over the months. It takes both appointments and walk-ins with an entrance on the west side of the main hospital building. There are three exam rooms open to clinic patients and any blood work or x-rays can be done while the patient waits. Cutting down on wait time is one core priority to Quirk and clinic staff.

“If you go to an ER, your average wait time is anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours,” Quirk said. “Here, you’re guaranteed that, within 30 minutes, you’ll be seen by a provider.”

The clinic is designed for a family medicine approach. Quirk said another positive to opening the clinic is offering another source of prenatal care locally.

“We’ve started getting some people in who don’t want to drive to Topeka or Leavenworth or Atchison to visit the doctor,” Quirk said. She has been a physician’s assistant for 22 years. “We’ve grown to a five or maybe eventually a six-day clinic. We aren’t going to have to turn away any phone calls. Everybody will be seen who wants to be seen. This is different from a bigger hospital because we can personalize (the service) more here.”

Greiner said the staff also has a focus on some preventative education, to some extent.

“We focus on preventative medicine,” Greiner said. “It’s about taking the time to talk to the patient about ways to keep from needing to come back again for the same problem.”

Quirk came to Kansas in 2006 and liked it so much she decided to stay. She said she continues to log some time doing some emergency room work to help keep her skills sharp (as does Greiner) and also is working on her master’s degree in business administration with thoughts of moving to the administrative side of health care at some point.

“I’ve worked for administrators of all kinds, and the ones with some experience on both sides of (health care) are usually the ones who get it,” she said. “It’s all about caring for people and thinking more about them than just the bottom line.”

Quirk said she’s been glad to see the clinic grow from month to month.

“We’re much more centered on the patient here than in other places,” Quirk said. She said the clinic staff is hoping to add sonogram and CAT scan equipment in the near future as well. “Word gets around if you don’t (take care of people right) but it also gets around if you do. We’ve gotten a lot of word-of-mouth business. Also, people are moving out to the rural areas more and more and the machine needs to be more and more well-oiled here to respond to that somewhat.

“We’ve also got payment plans available for people who don’t have insurance but still need to come in. You have that group of people out there who can’t afford insurance and feel they have nowhere to go. JCMH is doing its part to make sure those people who feel like they aren’t able to be seen can be seen.”