Area businesses also contract for preventive care services for employees' benefit, such as flu vaccines and TB tests. Increasingly, the health system continues to move away from the institutionally based care of hospitals to more frontline primary and preventive care throughout the community where it is delivered by a wider choice of providers, such as nurse practitioners, said Mackey, who is a registered nurse. UT Health Service recently contracted with the Texas Medical Center to provide primary health care for its employees and their dependents at a new clinic on the medical center campus. This project is intended both to provide service and to generate research regarding managed care. TMC is the latest in a successful string of contracts UT Health Services has entered into with local businesses to provide pre-employment and employee health care.
Businesses find the clinic both economical and timely.
Time is saved by sending ill or injured employees to the clinic for a short office visit instead to the emergency room where they may wait for hours and be charged hundreds of dollars for comparable care. The Pew Health Profession Commission and the Brown and Grimes report are two of 14 recent studies documenting the satisfaction and effective outcome provided by nurse practitioners. Patients are receiving time and attention and adequate care for anything from the sniffles to chronic asthma. In September 1992, after only 18 months in business, UT Health Services became the provider for all employee and student health for The University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center . Patients and their families from these contracted businesses are eligible for continuous primary care through the clinic as private patients.