“Every Wednesday from 4 to 8 p.m., you’ll find us in Highland Park,”says Nancy Lewis, associate professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.

Local pharmacists and pharmacy students from the college volunteer their services to this medically underserved community at a university-established clinic.

“We provide health and medication advice and offer educational health screenings,” Lewis says. “The clinic serves as a means to identify people at risk for undiagnosed or unmanaged hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes and asthma.” About half of all people seen at the clinic are referred for medical evaluations. “We also help those people without a primary care provider,” Lewis says. “In partnership
with the Voices of Detroit Initiative (VODI), we find a medical provider for them.”

This program, established through a grant from the Merck Company Foundation, is being expanded under a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Healthy Community Access Program grant. The clinic will work closely with VODI and federally qualified health centers to increase access to primary care and to improve the quality of care received by the uninsured and underinsured in Wayne County.