PREGNANCY RESOURCE CENTER OF SNOHOMISH COUNTY

Research shows that improving both maternal and paternal health during the prenatal period will increase the health of the family, including parents and children. Providing parents with education regarding prevention of STIs will improve overall physical health of the family unit while also increasing parental utilization of services at the PRC which will increase individual’s preparedness and knowledge based to become successful, healthy families.

Additionally, treatment of STIs during pregnancy is so important because untreated STIs are known to cause many negative health consequences for unborn children during pregnancy and after delivery. These complications include low birth weight, pre-term delivery, miscarriage, and other serious birth defects including blindness and developmental difficulties later in life. Funding for the STI testing, treatment and education program at PRC will improve the health of the overall family unit by preventing these significant conditions from occurring. Additionally, as the program grows, we hope that increased community awareness will draw in patients who do not have current pregnancy concerns but are looking for sexual health information and STI services, so that these patients may be provided information and teaching to prevent unplanned pregnancies, which helps increase the preventative healthcare actions of the PRC as time continues.

We utilized the help of a Gonzaga Doctor of Nursing Practice student who created our STI program as her doctoral project with the support of Gonzaga University.

The PRC obtained a $15k grant from the Molina Community Innovation Fund to cover the costs of the program launch, including training, hardware, software, medical supplies, and staffing. Testing is provided at no charge to our patients.

A local pharmacy has provided our patients with reduced pharma pricing for treatment medications and we were able to secure the services of a lab to process test results.

The program launched in September, 2020 to pregnancy test patients and their partners first with a plan to open services community wide by the end of 2020.

Clinic marketing will be updated to include STI testing and treatment information and will be available through our websites, social media and online marketing. Additionally, our Snohomish County network of 60+ medical and social agencies will receive updated collateral and be informed of the community launch.

The PRC employs WA State licensed medical professionals who administer testing and provide medically accurate, evidenced-based sexual health information to our patients. These medical professionals are overseen by our Medical Director, Dr. Gina Cadena-Forney, who practices in Snohomish for Providence.

Scheduling will be updated as these services are expanded to the community.

Accomplishments:
Program creation began in July of 2019.
Policies and procedures were researched and created as were Standing Orders.
The clinic secured the services of Centers for Disease Detection (CDD) lab in San Antonio, TX. Their patient reporting AFTIS software was installed on a purchased lab computer and testing kits were purchased and received. CDD training was completed by all patient-facing nursing staff.
After researching pharma pricing at a number of local pharmacies, we chose Bartell Drugs for best patient pricing.
Patient education materials were researched and purchased using CDC guidelines as the basis of our choice.
The AAAHC, the PRC credentialing body, was notified of the launch in accordance with their requirements.
All patient-facing staff were trained about offered services.
Medical staff began offering STI testing the pregnancy test patients the week of September 7, 2020.

What's Next:
Once our appointment processes are fine-tuned, we will notify our network that we are offering STI testing community wide.