of the family practice as well, hoping to strengthen its own patient-facing process- es and procedures by borrowing from the clinic’s model. Spurling will have a front- row seat to that effort, having been named Medical Director of Primary Care for the larger organization, through which he will have a hand in assessing and enhancing the overall patient experience, especially when it comes to receiving quality, com- passionate care. “I’m basically going to help with imple- menting new policies, standardizing all the primary care in the organization including the rural clinics, helping with recruitment of new providers and developing onboard- ing and education protocols for them as well,” he said of his new role. “I think a bigger part of what I’m trying to accomplish is bringing a patient-cen- tered focus to primary care system-wide. It’s not to say it’s not there now but we’ll be looking at ways to strengthen that and then looking at how we can collaborate better with our specialty and patient phy- sicians. This will result in better coordina- tion of care throughout the whole system.” For all of the change that the move rep-


resents, Spurling said the practice’s patients will still experience the same attentive care under the new arrangement as they always have, in some ways made better and easier to navigate having officially come under the Ozarks Healthcare umbrella. He pledged the same passion and commitment to the community that brought the clinic into re- ality in the first place. “Family medicine and primary care


Nurturing Hands


Dr. Shannon Marsden, the newest physician at Ozarks Healthcare Family Care, believes the clinic's patient-centered culture is what every clinic should strive for.


“From our standpoint, obviously they’re a much bigger organization with a lot of re- sources that we don’t have,” Spurling said. “This really does allow us the opportunity to coordinate our care much better with the specialists at the hospital. That abili- ty to coordinate and get testing done in a more timely manner is a big asset. “Technology is another area where we can benefit. Their patient portal is some- thing that they’ve invested a lot of time and


resources in and it’s really, really helpful as a result of that. Telemedicine is something we were kind of just dipping our toes into prior to this, but Ozarks Healthcare definitely has a more robust system and they’ve got plans for even a better system coming down the pipeline. That’s an area that will definitely be an advantage for us and something we just wouldn’t be able to do on our own.” Like all good partnerships, Ozarks Healthcare is benefiting from the addition


is really the ability to manage patients and their families through their entire lifespan and the entire disease process- es that come up,” he said. “It’s trying to keep them healthy and manage their health but it’s also helping them through the struggles of cancer, helping with that diagnosis and oftentimes involved with them at the end stage of that into hospice care as well. It really is a birth-to-grave specialty which is part of what makes it fascinating for me. “When we were approached by the hospital about wanting us to bring in our model of care to their organization, we saw this as an opportunity to help make some- thing better for the entire community. In the end, that’s what it all comes down to and what we’re here to do.”


FALL/WINTER 2022 | INSIGHT | 13


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