Pumping New Care Locales into Healthcare's Pipeline

By Whitney L.J. Howell

It was a stereotypical healthcare moment – a wife dragged her reluctant husband into a new Walgreens’ Take Care Clinic in Chicago. He hadn’t seen a primary care physician in nearly a decade, and now he was sweaty, shaky, and simply feeling bad.

The nurse practitioner (NP) on duty discovered he had significantly elevated blood pressure. Pairing that data with his other symptoms, she recognized he was in the danger zone for an acute cardiac event. So, she immediately sent him to the emergency department.

What happened the next day surprised her.

“The wife came back with flowers and told the nurse practitioner she had saved her husband’s life,” said Sandy Ryan, Chief Nurse Practitioner and Clinical Advocate at Take Care Clinics. “Her husband needed four stents to open blood flow, and the cardiac surgeon said had he not been routed to the emergency room, he would’ve passed away.”