Mobile urgent care offers at-home COVID testing, non-emergent care
6th April 2020 · 0 Comments
By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer
When it comes to quality health care, word can travel fast.
That’s especially true in neighborhoods where such care is sorely lacking, something John Dunbar has seen first-hand as of late.
As a medic with the New Orleans-based Ready Responders on-demand medical services company, Dunbar and his colleagues with the service frequently answer calls for non-emergent, in-residence health-care in areas of the city with vulnerable populations that are underserved with such care.
“All it takes is one call,” Dunbar said. “If we make one call, pretty soon everybody in the neighborhood has heard about it.”
Founded in June 2018, Ready Responders has positioned itself as a kind of mobile, in-home version of urgent care, making residential calls for medical complaints such as cold and flu; respiratory issues; ears, nose and throat concerns; skin issues; and gastrointestinal symptoms.
And, on March 30, Ready Responders launched at-home COVID-19 testing services for people who are unable to leave their residences because of a lack of transportation or financial issues.
Because Ready Responders accepts all forms of health insurance, including Medicare and Medicaid, the majority of the service’s calls occur in neighborhoods with large percentages of poor residents, ethnically diverse people, and other factors that otherwise would make care recipients underserved or vulnerable to lack of care.
Ready Responders CEO Justin Dangel said that the service has received an explosion in the number of calls it’s received since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, and while meeting those needs has been a challenge, it’s also one that Ready Responders is eager to take on.
“We were growing quite a bit before [coronavirus],” Dangel said. “But since then we’ve had four or five times the amount of calls than usual. It’s been pretty intense.”
However, Dangel added that COVID-19 testing and treatment is only one facet of Ready Responders’ services, adding that the company provides a full range of treatment for many symptoms or diagnoses in a way that allows its responders to fill a service niche that has been overlooked in many ways.
“The imperative for us is to give people more options for critical care,” he said.
Dangel said the Ready Responders medics who answer service calls are highly trained, with more staffers being accepted into the program and receiving cutting-edge training, and new medical technology being added.
Dangel also said that Ready Responders has partnered with Ochsner Health to provide more seamless, in-home care for residents, and he added that the medics who make up the Ready Responders service corps live and work in the neighborhoods they serve, allowing them to get to know the residents and patients who need care on an intimate, personal level.
“These factors make Ready Responders a popular service, because everyone can get as much help as they can,” Dangel said.
A statement from Ochsner Health System said its collaboration with Ready Responders has been extremely beneficial to everyone involved.
“About two years ago, we engaged Ready Responders as a potential solution to reduce unnecessary emergency department utilization through two offerings – at home urgent care visits and short-term case management for ED frequent fliers,” the statement said. “Our results to date have shown dramatic reduction in ED visits through appropriate redirection to a more appropriate level of care and elimination of social barriers to adequate care.
“As COVID-19 has intensified, Ready Responders has been a willing and flexible partner to develop innovative solutions to supplement Ochsner’s COVID-19 response, such as in-home COVID-19 screenings for suspected patients and follow-up with recently discharged patients who are either COVID-19 positive or suspected. Ready Responders, like Ochsner, always leads with the best interests of the patient when searching for solutions.”
Metairie resident Joel Luna told The Louisiana Weekly that he’s been using the Ready Responders service for about a year and has been very impressed with and grateful for the Responders’ assistance.
“My experience with them has been very amazing,” Luna said. “I’ve been having conditions like anxiety and high blood pressure for a while, and when I call them, they call back quickly.”
Luna added that the medics who have come to his house from Ready Responders always put him at ease.
“They’re very nice to me, and they have good communications with me,” he said. “The relationship I have with them is very comfortable.”
Dunbar said it’s the up-close, person-to-person interactions with recipients of care that often make the job most rewarding. He said by going into people’s homes and talking with them in a setting that’s more comfortable and less intimidating than a medical office or outside treatment facility, a personal connection can be made with patients that allows the medics to provide wider-ranging, holistic and ultimately better care than an urgent care or doctor’s office.
In communities where economic, racial or environmental factors traditionally can negatively affect the quality of medical care, he said, such treatment can be vital.
“We’ve got a unique opportunity to get to know the people we serve,” Dunbar said. “That allows us to treat people as a whole. Our resources give us a chance to address people’s deeper needs and to take deeper dives into their health care.”
Dangel said that especially now, during the COVID-19 crisis, with New Orleans hospitals running at full capacity and emergency services becoming overwhelmed by the exploding medical needs of the city, first responders to medical calls “are the bravest, most courageous people” on the front lines of the medical battle.
“The key to our program is our people,” Dangel said. “The strength of our service is being able to make a connection with the people in the community.”
He added that similar non-emergent, in-home health care services are sprouting up across the nation, from Nevada to New York City as word spreads and the quality of care continues to grow.
“It’s pretty satisfying knowing that we’re becoming the template for what’s going on all over the country,” he said.
Dunbar agreed.
“We’re constantly growing, and we’re still learning as we go along,” he said. “That’s what makes us such a dynamic part of the medical industry.
“We’re revolutionizing medicine as we know it,” he added. “We know it won’t come easy, but if we continue with the same passion and with the same leaders, we’ll be able to develop and overcome those challenges.”
Ready Responders service can be reached at (504) 608-3131.
This article originally published in the April 6, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
