Jamie Lewis (Host): Today we're getting acquainted with Andrea Washington, a Certified Family Nurse Practitioner who sees patients for primary care at Regional One Health's Primary Care Specialists. This is One-on-One With Regional One Health; your inside look at how we're building healthier tomorrows for our patients and our community. Join us as we get to know some of the individuals who help provide life-saving, life-changing care for our community. Thanks for listening. I'm Jamie Lewis. Hello, Andrea. Thank you for joining me.

Andrea Washington, MSN, FNP-C: Hi. Thank you for having me.

Host: Let's start out, maybe tell us a little bit about what a primary care provider does for patients and why it's so important for everyone to develop a relationship with a primary care provider.

Andrea Washington, MSN, FNP-C: A primary care provider helps manage patients' health and also prevent the patients from having to go to the hospital often, and basically that helps decrease medical costs, if you're able to see your primary care provider. Having a good relationship with your primary care provider helps keep you healthy, it's one of the most important things.

But not only keeping you healthy, we can also see you regularly and do preventive screenings to prevent or to monitor any changes in your health. And that is very important, especially when you have chronic conditions such as say, congestive heart failure or diabetes. And say if you're diabetic and you start to have numbness and tingling in your feet, or elevated blood sugars; having a primary care provider can definitely help monitor those things and hopefully prevent you from having any issues due to those chronic things.

Host: So getting these deep relationships, long-term relationships with patients, and working together not to escalate health concerns to where they need a hospital. I mean, that sounds really rewarding. What is most rewarding for you in working with your patients at Regional One Health?

Andrea Washington, MSN, FNP-C: Well, definitely working with my patients. One thing that's most rewarding and it's actually having them come back and have succeeded in controlling their blood pressure or say they controlling their blood glucose level based on education that I have given them or staying consistent with the medication regimen that we discussed at a, a visit prior to seeing them again. Another thing is also just being able to talk to my patients and having a great one-on-one relationship with them. Getting to know them, mostly, and being able to help them with more things other than just their health. Sometimes you have patients come in with other issues such as stressors in life that just with conversation, I'm able to talk to them and have them feel a little better as well. So that's rewarding just to have that one-on-one relationship with the patient.

Host: Okay, so you've touched on it already a little bit, but I want to learn more about your philosophy of care. How do you approach your patients to build that trust and to encourage them to take next steps that will improve their health?

Andrea Washington, MSN, FNP-C: So definitely treating my patients as if they're like my own family. I definitely want to treat my patients like I would want someone to treat my mother or how I would want someone to treat my grandmother, if they're present for any ailments that they may have. Just showing compassion and actually actively listening to their concerns at the visit is something that I try to do, so they're able to know that they can come to me for their health reason and not feel embarrassed because they're having issues that they're not sure if it's big or if it's something small. So definitely try to build up that trust. Just have as much respect and dignity for the patient.

Host: Compassionate care. That's what it sounds like to me. What do you wish more patients knew about primary care and why it's so important?

Andrea Washington, MSN, FNP-C: The primary care provider promotes a better wellbeing for the patient. And the, the goal is to keep the patient as healthy as possible. And we can do this by promoting a high quality of life. Definitely we can do this by health maintenance, early detection, continuation of care, convenience, as far as same day visits go, instead of the patient actually having to go to the ER because of a upper respiratory infection or having abdominal pain due to constipation, we're able to see the patient in a convenient time, with our same day appointments.

So I think that this is the, what I would want them to know about primary care and why it's important we're there. We're able to recognize things and especially with us promoting preventive screenings, that can actually keep us familiar with the patient and recognize things when they are going wrong.

Host: Right. Well, aside from when you're with patients, how about your life outside of work? What are some of the things you like to do during your free time?

Andrea Washington, MSN, FNP-C: Okay. So I think my life is not as exciting. Um, I love to read. That is one of the things that I like to do, and actually spend time with my family. I have two girls, one boy. Three children in all, and our favorite thing to do is we love Marvel. So if anything going, your Marvel movies come out, you will find us at the movie, cause that's something that we love to do.

Host: Well, it's for all ages.

Andrea Washington, MSN, FNP-C: So, yes. My son, he does sports as well. We're into baseball now. And then my daughter, she's a gamer, and then I have a college student, so it's pretty busy around the household. So, uh, during the school time.

Host: It sounds that way. I love hearing about your, your busy full life, and it's been wonderful getting to know you Andrea. Thank you again for joining us.

Andrea Washington, MSN, FNP-C: Thank you.

Host: For an appointment with Andrea, call 901-515-4800 and to learn more about our primary care practices, visit regionalonehealth.org/primary-care. Thanks for making One-on-One With Regional One Health, part of your journey to better health. Join us next time as we introduce you to another member of the Regional One Health Family. Until next time, be well. I'm Jamie Lewis.