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The trailer where Nurse Disrupted began its work
The idea grew from a need that arose at the beginning of the pandemic: screening people for COVID-19 to prevent outbreaks in homeless shelters. Operating out of a utility trailer plugged into a lamppost, with nursing students as staff and with initial equipment donated by Epic, Bre Loughlin set up a system for admission screening to help keep the virus from spreading at the Porchlight Men’s Emergency Shelter in Madison. From this seed, her idea has grown into a company called Nurse Disrupted whose telehealth platform has served, simultaneously increasing access to health care (not just for unhoused people but in rural settings where travel distance may be a barrier) and helping to ease the impact of health care staffing shortages. Read the full story.