Meet Suzy Parker, RN.
It’s not every day that you receive care from a nurse who is a former bricklayer. But that is exactly who is on the job serving members of the Northwest Sheet Metal Worker’s Health Benefits Plan and Northwest Regional Council with healthcare advocacy services.
By / Betty Long | Photo courtesy of Guardian Nurses
Since February 2022, Suzy Parker has been the Mobile Care Coordinator (MCC) for the Northwest Sheet Metal Worker’s (NWSMW) Health Benefits Plan and the Northwest Regional Council (NWRC).
In that role, Parker supports the members and families of Local 66, Local 55, Local 103, Local 23, and Local 16 as they access and navigate the healthcare system. She is expediting appointments, finding providers, answering questions about tests and results, expediting specialty medications, visiting patients in the hospital to make sure they’re getting good care and have an appropriate discharge plan, going with members to specialist appointments, and stopping in at their homes after they’ve been discharged from the hospital—just to check that they have all that they need to have a safe recovery. And she’s making those visits in a colorful, ‘can’t miss it,’ co-branded Buick SUV.
The Mobile Care Coordinator program is a unique, nurse-driven care coordination program that was created in 2013 by Betty Long, RN, MHA, founder and CEO of Guardian Nurses Healthcare Advocates. Guardian Nurses, based just outside of Philadelphia, PA, is a national patient advocacy organization employing a large team of nurses with clinical knowledge and experience managing and coordinating care in all sorts of settings, who assist individuals with navigating the healthcare system. MCC is an organization-specific, mobile arm of Guardian Nurses, accessed by members of a union or other organization as part of that organization’s health benefits plan. Since its founding in 2003, Guardian Nurses has helped thousands of patients who are confused, frightened, and lost navigating the healthcare system to get the help they need. Long, who comes from a large family in which she is the only nurse, started the company because she often wondered, “What do families do when they don’t have a nurse in the family to help them figure out where to go, what to do, and who and what to ask?”
Parker has been a nurse for 37 years, but before that, at the recommendation of her father, she joined the bricklayers union and worked on the job for several years. Nursing came calling, however, and she has never looked back. Working in many roles in the Pacific Northwest region, she has seen more than her share of patients confused by the healthcare system, not pursuing care because of fear, or mistreated by staff and physicians.
“I love being able to work with the members of the NWSMW and Regional Council to help them get better care and have a better experience during their journeys in our healthcare system—or lack thereof,” she says. “The COVID pandemic had such an awful impact on my colleagues working in both in-patient and out-patient settings. There is a critical lack of nursing and support staff, and that negatively impacts our members’ ability to get timely and effective care. I can help with that!”
And helped she has! In the last year, Parker has supported more than 300 NWSMW and NWRC members through various diagnoses, surgeries, even medication questions. In one case, she helped a shop foreman with a serious infection when he had been discharged too soon from the hospital. In a follow up visit, he told Parker, “I’m so grateful for your help. I’m telling everyone at work about you!”
Guardian Nurses has 17 other MCC programs throughout the United States, but both Long and Parker say that the membership of the NWSMW and Regional Council has been especially receptive to the support.
“The membership’s openness to Suzy’s support has been one of the very positive differences we’ve seen with this program,” Long says. “And we think that’s because of how well the rollout was done. From the time we introduced Guardian Nurses and onwards, the Board of Trustees and the folks at Rehn and Associates have been positive and eager to get this benefit to their membership.”
SMACNA-Western Washington’s executive vice president Julie Muller and Angela White, public relations manager for Holmberg Mechanical, are management trustees serving SMACNA-Western Washington on the NWMSW plan.
“MCC is available to our members to help them and their families navigate the healthcare system, ask all the right questions, and know whether they are receiving the best possible care,” Muller says. “This is an essential component of our health benefits plan and something we encourage our members to explore and use.”
“In Guardian Nurses’ short time with NWSMW Health and Welfare Trust, we’ve experienced exceptional results with some of our members experiencing extraordinary health care issues,” says Kolby Hanson, vice president, regional manager NWSMW Health and Welfare Trust. “Guardian Nurses has been a big benefit to helping those members and their dependents navigate through the health care system.”
All active members and their dependents are eligible for the Mobile Care Coordinator services. If you are in need of help, Parker is just a phone call or email away, Monday through Friday, 8 am to 4 pm. Call (206) 713-2123 or email sparker@guardiannurses.com. ■
