Families traveling from these Eastern Kentucky communities would need, at a minimum, four hours of travel time to get to Lexington and back home. And that’s just the time they'd be spending in their vehicle. "It can be a real burden on families to get here to Lexington, and then their child goes years without having a follow-up," said diabetes educator Angela Hepner.
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LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 19, 2021) The past year has been filled with new routines, new rules, and new fears for many people as the world has navigated the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. During this time staff members at UK HealthCare’s Barnstable Brown Diabetes Center (BBDC) found a unique way to ease some anxiety as young patients and their families returned to in-person clinic visits.
“No patient here is just a number or diagnosis, but an individual,” said Shannon O’Mara, nurse manager and pediatric endocrine nurse at BBDC. It is with that mindset that Angela Hepner, a pediatric diabetes educator, thought of a way to help identify each staff member and decrease anxiety as everyone returned to a clinic setting after months of telehealth. The idea – giant buttons featuring the smiling faces of the staff and health care providers underneath the mask and other personal protective equipment (PPE) which can decrease nonverbal communication and interaction with the patients