Clinicians 4 Care was founded by Wayne Thompson, MS, ABD who spent 35+ years at an executive level running large health systems in the USA. This included large undeserved populations in both urban and rural settings, challenges with recruitment and retention of clinicians, technology adoption, facilities management, community outreach, supply chain, biomedical services, and more . Further information is available on Linked In. Upon retirement, he moved back to the Caribbean, and implemented an idea that had been brewing for many years. The idea was twofold.
First, to improve health by enhancing access. As seen repeatedly over decades, even in the so-called “first world”, the main barrier to health was often access. It often showed up in terms like “transportation”, or “lost time from work” or “cost”, but the issue was access to care. The research literature is repleat with studies affirming this barrier. It is exacerbated in the Caribbean, where resources for both patient and provider is often a constant challenge. When combined with relatively low levels of health literacy, it means that access must be convenient and very low cost to be effective. While access to care has many components, Clinicians 4 Care focuses on clinician services, without which, the best facilities in the world are useless.
The second part of the idea is to utilize technology to remove the friction and frustration that many in the diaspora had experienced in trying to help the communities from which they came. The construct is simple: If it is easy to give back, more people will do so. Telehealth technology in particular is more than mature enough to deliver a select set of needed services to underserved communities. It has been widely used around the world for years, and the pandemic cemented its value. The founder has years of experience in implementing telehealth, and it means that any community with electricity and Internet service (which is surprisingly good in much of the Caribbean) can utilize this modality.
Of course, this is easier said than done, and a small team of volunteers is dedicated to all aspects of the mission. What we seek is not so much money, but clinicians with a commitment of time, and a basic comfort level with technology equivalent to a video conference call. It is our sense that there are enough individuals out there willing to give, that better health is within reach for the countries and the region that we hold dear.