Core Family Health

Thanksgiving Weekend is approaching! Here in our office that means flu shot season is as well! Just a reminder to book your appointments for your flu shot. Booking an appointment ensures that we have enough vaccine on hand from Public Health to do the shots booked. It also ensures we know how many people are coming and we can plan for appropriately for sanitizing and cleaning.

Flu Shot Season is Fast Approaching! Influenza vaccinations will be available to our clinic from about October 14th through December. We are encouraging everyone to receive a shot this year. As you have likely heard, the vaccine will be even more important this year. ... To promote social distancing our team (Dr. Goodman, Dr. Todd, Kyla and Ciara) will be holding clinics in our parking lot in the evening and on Saturdays. Patients will drive up, get your flu shot while still in your car and then park for fifteen minutes in case of any reaction. After this, you may leave. Our team we be taking all the same safety precautions, we will be sanitized and we will be masked. If you have an office appointment in October through January we can certainly give you a flu shot during your usual visit. We are aiming to ensure we have complete records for all flu shots given. Having this documentation on hand will help us this season in determining if you have a cold, the flu or COVID. For this reason we would prefer if you received your flu shot here at the office. Going elsewhere is of course, your choice, but as always we want to be your first call for primary care. We feel this is the best way to promote vaccination safety, and social distancing.

Some good news looking for blood collection! On Sept. 25, online booking will become available for appointments at: Eastern Kings Memorial Community Health Centre Blood Collection in Wolfville Patients wishing to book blood collection appointments online at these locations or other existing locations noted above can visit https://booking.nshealth.ca as of Sept. 25.... Other locations and DI booking online will follow later.

Good Morning! We are experiencing difficulties with our phone system, and working with our provider to have this resolved as soon as possible. Our online booking portal is available - and if you have not registered, we would be happy to set you up. Thanks for your patience!

Good Afternoon! We are changing our Facebook page name to reflect our upcoming move! We will be located at to 70 Exhibition Street! We are excited to be moving to our new home! It is being renovated, so the date isn't set yet, but we will keep you posted! Our new name is Core Family Health! We feel this reflects our practice well, and can't wait to share our new logo with you, once we have it perfected! :)

It's your doctor calling! Have you had a phone or virtual appointment with your doc? Did you find it more convenient and easier to schedule? Doctors are still seeing patients in person but virtual care is a great option for many situations. If you do find this more convenient and we are calling please do answer! These are formal appointments, requested by you. ... Over the past 30 days we have had 62 no shows across our 3 providers. This means 62 people did not get a time and had to wait. We understand that everyone is moving around and trying to enjoy the summer, but please do answer your phone if you requested a time.

We wanted to take a moment and wish everyone a wonderful Canada Day! We will be closed for the holiday tomorrow. We also wanted to let you all know that we are moving in the fall! Not to worry, we aren't going far, and we are excited to share the details with you as soon as we have them! Take care, please stay well and continue to do our part by physically distancing, washing our hands and wearing our masks.

Here are some FREE online offerings coming up from NSHA!

Please be advised there are new numbers for blood collection.

Good Morning, We are hoping that if we leave you a message to confirm your appointment, that you could give us a quick call back and leave a message saying if that time works or not. We would appreciate a call back within 24 hours, so we can continue to book patients in accordingly. Thank you!

We hope everyone is doing well! As we move through this time of things re-opening a bit, we hope everyone is still taking good care, washing their hands and continuing to physically distance as per the Public Health guidelines. We are open as usual just doing things a little different, so we wanted to refresh everyone on the practice’s protocols. Please book your appointments by calling 902-681-1080 and leave a message. We are not accepting appointment requests via e...mail or Facebook Messenger. You can always book your telephone appointment via the online booking portal- which is the fastest and easiest access point. We have also added 2 appointment types (besides telephone appointments) to be booked online prenatal and immunizations. If you fall into this category you can book these online. When leaving a phone message, please leave your full name and phone number and general reason for your call. If you are calling on behalf of someone else (example your child) please ensure you leave their full name. All appointments are telephone appointments unless you are notified otherwise. If you have an in person visit our administration staff will call you with specific directions. We are working hard to limit touch points, and contact with other patients. When you are given an in person appointment, please do your best to attend this appointment. When given a phone appointment, please ensure you answer your phone our number will show up as unlisted. Thank you for your co-operation!

This is a great visual regarding virtual care!

Welcome home to all our Snowbirds! We thought it would be a good time to reshare how our clinic is working during this time. We are thinking of you all as you self isolate, and hope you are feeling well! The Birchwood team is still monitoring the COVID 19 situation, and taking guidance from our public health officials. We appreciate you being patient with us as we navigate a new way of working! We are still here for you via phone and our patients that use online booking can... still do so however the options have changed. The only available option is a telephone appointment. When booking, one must put in their contact number where they can be reached and a reason for the appointment. This will aid us greatly, and we appreciate your co-operation. Any appointment that is booked will be reviewed by our healthcare team (this is why the reason is so important) and if it is necessary for diagnosis, we will call you into the office. We will also work hard to stagger in person visits. We are respecting the public health official’s advice in every aspect in regards to social distancing. We want to ensure our environment is safe and comfortable for you. Stay well, Stay home, remember your physical distancing and above all remember we are all in this together!

The Birchwood team is still monitoring the COVID 19 situation, and taking guidance from our public health officials. We appreciate you being patient with us as we navigate a new way of working! We are still here for you via phone and our patients that use online booking can still do so however the options have changed. The only available option is a telephone appointment. When booking, one must put in their contact number where they can be reached and a reason for the app...ointment. This will aid us greatly, and we appreciate your co-operation. Any appointment that is booked will be reviewed by our healthcare team (this is why the reason is so important) and if it is necessary for diagnosis, we will call you into the office. We will also work hard to stagger in person visits. We are respecting the public health official’s advice in every aspect in regards to social distancing. We want to ensure our environment is safe and comfortable for you. We hope everyone is staying well!

Some helpful information - this was found @canada.ca/coronavirus

COVID19 Update March 16, 2020 We want you to know the Birchwood team is here for you. We are in constant contact with Public Health officials, and we continue to monitor this fluid situation. If you do not have the symptoms of cough and/or fever of 38 or 100.4 or higher, and have not travelled we want to be your first point of contact. If you have these symptoms, 811 should be your first call. Please refrain from dropping into the office call us or email us at [email protected] and we will assist you. We will do necessary booked appointments via phone call unless a healthcare professional has deemed a face to face visit is essential for diagnosis - those patients will be contacted by the office. We want to be sure you are in contact with us should you need us. If you have appointments that are not urgent, we ask that you wait to book these. If our healthcare team are called away for urgent care, you will hear from us. Please monitor our FB page (Birchwood Medical Clinic) for future notices. We are all in this together, and we appreciate your patience with us during this ever changing time. See more

Good Afternoon, We understand there is a lot of information around the topic of Covid19. Here is our plan going forward at this time, and we will continue to be fluid in our responses. We will notify you via email from our online booking portal, and our FB page, of changes as they occur. The healthcare group at Birchwood is committed to social distancing in an effort to reduce spread of Covid-19. Those of us who work in inpatient units are sure to become higher risk for... infecting others, especially vulnerable patient populations, over the next few weeks as this illness becomes active here in NS. So we definitely want to take steps to mitigate this. As a result we have decided to encourage non-face to face appointments (phone appointments) for all currently upcoming booked appointments, whenever this is appropriate. Examples would be for follow up on chronic conditions such as mental health rechecks, Diabetes routine follow up, reviewing CV risks, chronic pain review, med refills, etc. These patients will be offered either a phone follow-up appointment in lieu of their in-person booked appointment, or a deferral of their follow up. We will continue to see patients in-person if the context requires it for example for physical exam such as breast exam for lump, new presentation of injury or pain, chest or abdominal complaint that is new, or urgent follow up that requires exam. Procedures such as paps, injections, immunizations will either proceed or be deferred depending on clinical context and urgency. We will also be available during regular hours for phone inquiries from patients, and for urgent fit in appointments as we are able to accommodate. We will continue to have our triage staff and ourselves reinforce to patients the appropriate route for screening for COVID-19 suspect cases (ie advise them to NOT present to our clinic or to the emergency room but to call 811, or to call 911 if in crisis/distress). When booking your appointments online -PLEASE put in as much detail as possible, and let us know that you are ok with a telephone appointment. When you have a telephone appointment we will call you, please do not call us (and this may be an unknown number). Thanks, Your Healthcare Team

Critial Coronavirus / Covid-19 update As directed by the Department of Health, in order to minimize the spread of the Coronavirus / COVID-19 infection in our community: If you have travelled out of country within the preceding 14 days, please do not attend your appointment at Birchwood Professional Centre, as you are required by the Public Health directive to remain at home for a 14 day self-isolation period, regardless of symptom presence or absence. If possible, please can...cel your appointment through our website rather than phoning. You may also phone your pharmacy, should you require extensions of your prescriptions. If you are symptomatic with a fever of 38C or over OR a new cough, or worsening of a chronic cough AND you have travelled outside of Canada within 14 days of symptom onset OR you have been in close contact with a high risk individual, please -again- DO NOT seek medical attention from your family physician or local walk-in clinic. Please instead - call 811 - and await their direction to determine whether you require assessment at a COVID-19 testing site. To lessen the burden on 811, another phone line has been set up to answer questions related to the virus, please call 1-833-784-4397. We ask for your full cooperation as we strive to minimize the spread of this virus amongst the public."

Please see the link below to find out more about COVID-19 Assessment Centres in our area. http://www.nshealth.ca/coronavirus