Olivet Medical Ministry, Inc. dba Lackey Clinic

Lackey Clinic’s mission is “to provide skilled, compassionate healthcare and counseling to the medically disadvantaged in a manner that honors the name of Jesus Christ.” We provide treatment to all who meet our eligibility requirements (financial, service area, age, insurance status) regardless of race, creed, or religion and their lack of financial means to pay for their care. To accomplish this, we have 34 full and part-time staff supplemented by several hundred volunteers. We are the primary care physicians for over 1,100 patients and almost 500 dental patients. We also provide free/low-cost pharmaceuticals, behavioral counseling, and spiritual care under our holistic umbrella. Because our patients are uninsured and below a certain income range, they qualify for free brand-named drugs which we apply for on behalf of our patients. When needed, we refer patients to local hospitals and specialists to deliver the required labs, x-rays, diagnostics, surgeries, and treatments beyond our clinic’s capabilities. During the COVID-19 pandemic our clinic remained open to provide continuity of care for our patients. This required a migration to telehealth for many of our patient visits. The telehealth capability opened the door for us to offer virtual urgent care for many of the 40,000 ALICE households who are not our patients and do not have a medical home. We believe these people desperately need care but are unaware of where and how to get it. We would like to increase our patient population to 1,600-2,00 patients per/year. Lastly, we are researching the capability of using technology and telehealth to improve health outcomes. We are conducting a weight management program utilizing remote monitoring equipment and Fitbits to measure weight, physical activity, diet, and other health metrics. Volunteer pre-Med students monitor patient results and provide assistance and coaching to the patients via telehealth meetings.

Our primary strategy is focused on attracting, retaining, and financing the staff, facilities, equipment, and supplies required to fill all of the basic healthcare requirements of our population. This requires us to create an employee friendly environment where staff feel appreciated, cared for, safe and fairly compensated. Our clinic is also based on a volunteer model which helps us expand our coverage above what our budget allows. On average, we have ten volunteers per day in the clinic, which is 25% of our staff. Another strategy is to make our clinic a very pleasant and volunteer-centric environment with meaningful work. Our strategy to provide free health care for all levels of care is to have charity care agreements with major hospital systems, dental providers, and other specialty care groups. This provides our patients with integrated care at no cost. Another strategy is to expand what we call “Lackey Virtual.” This strategy utilizes telehealth and volunteer providers to reach non-patients in a very inexpensive and efficient manner. Our Virtual Urgent Care model not only helps the ALICE population who have no health insurance, it also provides a conduit for these people to potentially become our patients, thus increasing our patient numbers. Our research program is a strategy designed to test, develop, and standardize ways to improve health outcomes. To support this strategy, we have partnered with Accuhealth (remote monitors), and Fitbit (activity and diet tracking) and they are offering their technology at discounted rates. The results of the initial weight management program will help us define future workflows to improve health outcomes with technology and telehealth.

Lackey Clinic’s capabilities to meet our goals is outstanding. Our staff is a very seasoned and well-trained team with little to no human resources issues. They believe in our mission with a unique passion that keeps them focused on the “higher cause” of helping our patients. Their compassion is incredible and is reflected in everything they do and touch. Our volunteers are also very special people. We provide many pre-Med students the opportunity to gain clinical volunteer hours and medical care experience. We provide retired professionals an environment where they can serve and be part of a family. We have volunteers younger than twenty and older than 92. In 2021, a year when Covid-19 still was prevalent, we had over 227 volunteers donating almost $500,000 of service. Also, we have tremendous relationships with students in our community to include medical students at Liberty University, dental hygiene students at VPCC (formerly known as TNCC), and pharmacy students at VCU. All come to intern at our facility for various amounts of time and participate in the care of our patient population. In addition, we have pre-medical students from CNU and William and Mary who participate in our scribe program. Financially, our clinic has continued to raise more money than we have spent in the past two years, and we are on track for a third positive year. Support in terms of number of grants, grant funding, donors, new donors, and donations has also been steadily increasing. In 2021 we received the Bank of America’s prestigious Neighborhood Builders grant.

Primary and Specialty Medical Care: We continued to deliver care to all of our patients throughout the pandemic, never closing the clinic. We launched Telemedicine, provided digital thermometers, pulse oximeters, and blood pressure cuffs to our patients, and held 2,522 telemedicine appointments since launching on March 23, 2020.
Dental Care: We shut down the dental operations for 11 weeks until we could procure the needed equipment to safely open. We added 16 hours of dentist capability/week. Launched Teledentistry and Dental Only patient services. Had 159 Dental Only patients enrolled since it launched in April 2021.
Free and Low-Cost Medications: Continued to deliver medications throughout the pandemic via a side window we converted to service patients outside the clinic. Launched mailing medications program on May 1, 2020 with support from Rx Partnership, 168 packages of medications mailed, over $13 million value of all prescriptions given to our patients since beginning of pandemic.
Lackey Virtual: Hired a full time RN and scribe to start the Lackey Virtual program. Virtual Urgent Care launched, began Virtual Meet and Greets, and established Virtual Same-Day Acute Care. Developed processes, tools, and protocols for volunteer providers to easily plug into our system. Have two remote doctors volunteering from northern Virginia. Invested over $50,000 in systems related hardware, software, and capabilities.
Better Vision Eye Care: Hired an optometrist 8 hours/week. Launched program in Aug 2020. Had 461 patient visits in just 60 days open (open on Wednesdays only). Provided 364 free eyeglasses for our patients.
Patient Communication: Created Patient Care Center, installed new phone system to better communicate, and started Care Message program to text reminders to our patients.
Behavioral Health Counseling: Added another Behavioral Health Counselors (total 3) to meet the increasing demand, launched Telecounseling and completed 740 Behavioral Health Patient Appointments since March 2020,
Spiritual Care: We created an online prayer request form.
Research Program: Enrolled 35 patients and 10 pre-Med Student Patient Partners. Purchased and distributed remote monitoring equipment and Fitbits. Conducted initial nutrition assessment and treatment plans. Began tracking metrics and telehealth interactions.
Translation and Transportation Services - To address translation challenges, we have partnered with VOYCE, a translation service with both phone and video conference capabilities to interface during patient appointments. VOYCE alleviates the need for the patient to struggle to find someone to translate for them and also ensures that their needs and concerns are being appropriately communicated. To address transportation challenges, the clinic has partnered with LYFT to provide rides to medical and dental appointments at the clinic.