March 12, 2020

One Foot at a Time – South Park Senior Center Foot Clinic

Nursing Students: Hillary Frey, Vanessa Nguyen, Jeremiah Nordstrom, Ngan Trinh & Danielle Weber

Nurse Faculty: Hilary Jauregui, DNP, MN, RN

Executive Summary

Introduction

South Park is a small neighborhood located between the Duwamish River and Highway 509. We spent our community health clinical this quarter in South Park, working with the South Park Senior Center to plan and implement a foot care clinic.

Community Health Issue

Our community partner, Dagmar Cronn, shared her concerns about the health complications due to inadequate foot hygiene among seniors. We worked on establishing a sustainable foot care clinic at the Senior Center in order to mitigate the health issue.

Community Health Assessment

After completing a windshield survey and holding discussions with community leaders, we found that South Park is a diverse community where a significant percentage of the population is foreign-born. One major challenge the community faces is that they are physically cut off from other neighborhoods due to geographic location and industrialization. This cuts off the community’s access to resources that could potentially benefit their health. Although they are more isolated from the greater Seattle area, their sense of community and support for each other surpasses the challenges they face.

Community Health Improvement Plan

Our plan was to organize and implement the first foot clinic at South Park. We collaborated with our community partner and an expert foot care consultant to set up a foot clinic that will be held in Spring of 2020. We worked towards the goal of improving foot care hygiene within the South Park community by creating educational pamphlets and arranging for expert foot care nurses to provide care and education to the seniors.

Project Evaluation

Although the foot clinic did not occur within the original timeframe, we anticipate that the foot clinic will have long term benefits in the community. The sustainability of the foot clinic is dependent on the ongoing relationship built between South Park Senior Center (SPSC) staff and local foot care nurses.

Recommendations & Next Steps

In the future, we recommend that the South Park Senior Center staff reach out to Bonnie Ackles at least three months in advance when planning for another foot clinic. We also recommend collecting ongoing donations to support the foot clinic, and assembling and districting the foot care supply bags and educational pamphlets to attendees.

Conclusion

We would like to thank our community partners, Bonnie Ackles, and the South Park seniors for allowing us to be a part of their community. We look forward to seeing what the future holds for the South Park Foot Clinic.

See the poster presentation here and read the full report here!