Brandi Keith is happy to be returning to UCA with a new position as director of operations for the Interprofessional Teaching Center (ITC) at the new Integrated Health Sciences Building.
Obtaining her undergraduate degree in political science and currently pursuing her Masters in Business Administration at UCA, Keith said she is “thrilled to be back at UCA.”
“After graduating, I kind of stayed within the community but always had this dream that I [got] to come back to UCA, but I didn’t really know how that would work because I got into healthcare,” Keith said. “When this opportunity came up, I was really excited and shocked. It felt so perfect.”
In Keith’s new position, she will be administering all the clinical services and interprofessional programs for the College of Health and Behavioral Sciences (CHBS). These responsibilities include scheduling patients and ITC activities, monitoring cleanliness of the clinic, keeping track of billing and maintaining positive relationships with providers inside and outside of the clinic.
“The center is really intended to serve the underserved and fill this gap in healthcare that we see in the community,” Keith said. “So I think that’s going to be another big part of this is communicating with providers in the community and making sure that they understand the mission of the clinic.”
The clinic will be partnering with local institutions like Conway Regional — which happens to be where Keith was previously employed doing administrative work — to provide billing services and their electronic medical record system (EMR).
The clinic will be run in tandem of two pieces. “It will be a functioning clinic that provides patient care,” Keith said. But, it will also be an opportunity for students to get hands-on learning. “We will be providing care from the services that are provided in the College of Health and behavioral sciences,” Keith said.
These different services will include physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech, psychology, exercise science, nutrition and nursing.
“The hope is that we will integrate the clinic into classes,” Keith said. A lot of those students may want to open a clinic eventually so they may need to see how a clinic operates.” However, there will not be classes held within the clinic, but the work in the clinic may supplement a class.
Many ideas for the center are abstract at the moment, but Keith says it is exciting to be building from the ground up. “I feel like we have an opportunity to do something that no one in the country is really doing. There’s a lot of interprofessional education centers across the country, but no one’s really doing this billing piece with it. I’m super excited about the opportunity to build something that basically doesn’t exist,” Keith said.
This will, in turn, attract people to attend the university that would not normally attend. “I think [a] goal would be for us to be a service to the community, a center for wellness, that the community looks to to provide care for the underserved,” Keith said. “I really want this center to be a recruitment tool for UCA, something that we can say, ‘hey this is what we do and nobody else is doing.’ And really setting up the university setting as a great place to come and get education in health and behavioral sciences.”
Additionally, Keith would like to focus her energy on financial sustainability for the clinic. “Whether that comes from revenue or from soft funds, like grant funds and things like that. That’s something that I’ve really got my eyes on right now,” Keith said.
According to UCA news, the ITC will be located on the first floor of the Integrated Health Sciences Building, which is expected to be completed fall 2021. It will include “private examination/counseling rooms, a therapy gym, a pediatric therapy room, an area for assisting clients with activities of daily living and a community classroom with a teaching kitchen for cooking classes, client education and classes for the public. The facility will allow students in nursing and other health professions to learn and work alongside each other instead of independently, creating a modern health care team.”
