Family Nurse Practitioner Nancy Allen: ‘Serving patients in so many ways and meeting them where they are most comfortable is of utmost importance’
With more than four decades of health care experience, Family Nurse Practitioner Nancy Allen seeks to enhance access for the patients of Western Sierra Medical Clinic.
From answering questions about medications to following up on lab work, Allen is a just click away for patients as a telehealth provider.
“It’s such a great way for patients to communicate,” says Allen, wo helps coordinate care for patients. “There are so many things that can be addressed. Patients can connect via regular telephone, smartphone, laptop, or tablet, which can save time for them and affords convenience while providing opportunities to further expedite care.”
Allen, who joined Western Sierra in October 2022, has experienced quite a few changes in health care over the years, including the advent of the electronic medical record. Telehealth has seen a major increase since the onset of the Covid pandemic, providing another needed access point for so many people.
Allen earned a bachelor’s degree in Nursing from the University of Virginia and later a master’s degree in Nursing from Sonoma State University.
Much of her career has been in Sonoma County working as an outreach nurse practitioner on a mobile medical clinic, but also includes almost four years in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, where she worked in an inner-city clinic.
Allen now lives in Central Florida, from where Western Sierra patients will connect with her during their telehealth appointments. But even from across the country, Allen knows Western Sierra and its patients well, after serving as a locum tenens (temporary) provider at the Penn Valley and Grass Valley clinics for a number of months in 2021, and again in early 2022.
Her early career included work as a staff nurse at a Surgical Intensive Care Unit in Virginia and later the same position at Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto.
“After working in these critical care settings, it became increasingly clear to me that I could best serve patients in working with them on prevention, risk reduction, and the promotion of wellness strategies in the primary-care setting as a nurse practitioner, with the express intention of keeping patients out of the hospital.”
And that is the goal for Allen, who enjoys playing music and singing in groups when she is not working.
“It’s been a great privilege to serve people in so many ways.”