Nursing

January 17, 2025

Vanderbilt Primary Care North Nashville helping to improve health outcomes

Vanderbilt’s first primary care clinic in North Nashville is nurse-run and offers all aspects of primary care, preventive and acute services to adults and children over 2.

Vanderbilt Primary Care North Nashville, at 2153 26th Ave. N, is located on the ground floor of an affordable housing complex known as 26th and Clarksville. (photo by Donn Jones)

For more than three years, a diverse population of patients has visited Vanderbilt’s first primary care clinic in North Nashville.  

Vanderbilt Primary Care North Nashville, at 2153 26th Ave. N, is located on the ground floor of an affordable housing complex known as 26th and Clarksville. The facility, operated by the nonprofit Urban Housing Solutions, is located three miles from downtown, just off the No. 22 WeGo bus line. 

The clinic is nurse-run, as part of a partnership between Vanderbilt University School of Nursing and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. It accepts TennCare, expanding access to patients with low incomes and disabilities. 

The clinic offers all aspects of primary care, preventive and acute services, not just to adults, but to anyone age 2 and older. It also has a laboratory.  

“One of our front desk staff members lives in that apartment complex, which is great for the community to have that connection,” said Christina Mathis, MSN, RN, manager of Vanderbilt Primary Care North Nashville. 

Some of the clinic’s patients simply walk downstairs from their home to go to the clinic; others take the bus; and others come from the wider Middle Tennessee area, said Negest Alemu, DNP, RN, a family nurse practitioner and the clinic’s primary care provider for the last two years. Anyone is welcome to become a patient. 

The clinic is contributing to improving health outcomes, reaching patients that Vanderbilt might not otherwise have reached. “For a lot of the patients we see in the community, it’s been decades or several years since they’ve established primary care,” Alemu said. 

She stressed the importance of primary care in catching ailments early, before they develop into life-threatening issues. 

“Being able to do their annual physicals and labs, we can catch prediabetes, high cholesterol and hypertension early, decreasing risk of cardiovascular events and other end-organ damage,” she said. “There are many patients that we catch early and are able to treat.” 

Alemu also stressed the importance of cancer screenings and working with patients to find specialists who take their insurance plans. “We find them resources that are close to the community, even if it’s not through Vanderbilt … so that transportation barriers could be avoided.” 

Patients who are seeing specialists at Vanderbilt can get their labs done at the clinic, saving them a trip to the Main Campus, Alemu said. 

Having a clinic in the community also builds trust with historically underrepresented patient groups who may mistrust medical providers. “Some of them come by just to say ‘Hi,’ or to ask any medical questions that come up, which shows that they are feeling more comfortable with us and the care we provide,” she said. 

As trust increases, Alemu has observed that patients will invite other family members to become patients at the nurse-run clinic.  

“When we think of nursing care, everyone thinks of compassionate care,” she said. “That’s the first thing that comes to people’s minds, and with such a vulnerable community, I think that’s what has led us to become successful and for our patient population to grow, because we’re able to provide care that’s compassionate where they feel heard and comfortable.” 

In addition to Alemu, the clinic has a medical assistant. The clinic’s association with Vanderbilt University School of Nursing also allows for two fellows to rotate through the North Nashville clinic each year, “which is a great opportunity to really connect them to patients as well as primary care services as a whole,” Mathis said. Alemu was previously a VUSN fellow. 

The clinic regularly participates in community events, such as providing flu shots at health fairs, said Kimberly Lippard, MBA, MSN, RN, administrative director of Clinical Operations and Interim Associate Operating Officer for the Primary Care Patient Care Center. She said the clinic is emblematic of Vanderbilt’s strategy to create neighborhood-based primary care clinics, closer to where patients live. 

“It really serves a population of the Nashville community that most of our other clinics are not able to serve. “It is a small clinic, but they do a lot of great work out of there.”