By Joy Westerman
Kevin Lee Smith, The Good Clinic’s chief nurse practitioner officer, was recently interviewed by Doxminity about NPs who have created their own clinics in search of the autonomy and patient relationships lacking in mainstream health care.
Below is an excerpt from the article.
That “happiness in helping” is another driving factor for creating one’s own clinic. Beyond benefiting personally from a more autonomous arrangement, several NPs acknowledged that such a humanistic approach is helpful for patients. Kevin Smith, DNP, one of the founders of The Good Clinic, an entirely NP-staffed primary care practice in Minneapolis, Minnesota, shared that he came to his current role after reflecting on the problems in primary care — namely, a high degree of burnout and turnover due to a lack of face-to-face time with patients. To remedy these issues, NP Smith and his colleagues sought to build a clinic with a more patient-centered perspective. “In health care, we’ve done a lousy job with … customer service, feeling like you’re being taken care of,” NP Smith said. “So [my partners and I] wanted to really shake up primary care and make it into a different experience. … We have 30-minute appointments, and every new patient has a 60-minute appointment. … [We wanted] to create that environment where individuals have the space to talk about those things that are maybe very personal, maybe they haven’t had that trusting feeling with a provider before.”