The prenatal care program at the M Physicians Broadway Family Medicine Clinic offers something that many do not––continuity of care before, during and after birth. Patients are welcome at any stage, from before they become pregnant to the later stages of pregnancy, and the same provider will follow them throughout their entire pregnancy and into the postpartum period.
“Many of the individuals that we follow for prenatal care are already patients of our clinic, and we also see new patients establishing care for their pregnancy once they’re pregnant,” said Dr. Andrea Westby, family medicine physician at the M Physicians Broadway Family Medicine Clinic.
Sometimes it can be challenging for pregnant people to find a place to establish care late in their pregnancy, especially after 32 weeks, but that isn’t the case at Broadway Family Medicine. “We never turn anyone away for care based on gestational age. We’ll see them at our clinic and help connect them with resources or high-risk pregnancy care providers if that’s needed regardless of how far along they are or if they’ve ever been to our clinic,” Dr. Westby said.
When patients first come in, they spend time with the clinic’s nurse triage and OB care coordinators, talking through social determinants of health and any contributing factors outside of their immediate medical concerns that might contribute to a healthy pregnancy.
“We also connect our patients to resources as indicated by the screening based on wants and needs,” Dr. Westby said. “This includes an automatic referral for all of our patients to the Minnesota Visiting Nurses Association (MVNA), as there often are new programs that MVNA offers that help provide wraparound services or extra support for pregnant people.”
The program offers a variety of unique services, including continuity of care, additional care opportunities outside of prenatal care and access to a primary care substance use disorder model.
“The resident physician who provides the prenatal care––the primary OB provider––actually attends the patient’s birth in most circumstances. This is starting to become more unusual in the prenatal care world and means that the same provider follows the patient throughout the whole pregnancy and after the birth,” Dr. Westby said.
The provider is called when their patient goes into labor or is notified if they are scheduled for induction or cesarean section.
“Seeing one provider throughout the pregnancy means that the provider really gets to know the patient and their family well, along with their hopes and expectations through the pregnancy, for the birth and after the pregnancy,” Dr. Westby said.
Having that in-depth knowledge of the whole person, along with their relationship to community and family and those long-term goals is a real benefit of the family medicine model of care. Because of this, the clinic is also able to care for other kinds of medical ailments that occur during the pregnancy, as well as care for the infant and entire family after birth.
In addition, the M Physicians Broadway Family Medicine clinic follows a primary care substance use disorder model, which provides primary care opioid use disorder treatments, like suboxone, to those who need them.
“The clinic is able to continue following pregnant people with opioid use disorder throughout their pregnancy, prescribe their suboxone and help them maintain their sobriety and continue to have a healthy pregnancy all the way through,” Dr. Westby said.
Over the past year, the M Physicians Broadway Family Medicine Clinic has explored moving to a new space on Broadway Avenue that will enable them to continue serving the neighborhood. The clinic will be relocating to the northeast corner of Broadway and 26th Avenues in the Jordan neighborhood of North Minneapolis in early 2021––however, the clinic will continue to see patients at its current location until the new space opens.
“We will continue offering the same great prenatal and family medicine care to our current and future patients,” Dr. Westby said. “But, we are hopeful that our new location will also allow us to expand and offer additional services, like lactation specialists, which would provide pre-birth preparation for breastfeeding and an opportunity for future parents to get their questions answered.”
To schedule an appointment at the M Physicians Broadway Family Medicine Clinic, call 612-302-8200.