The Sparrow Neighborhood

What would you do with the observations, discussions, and ideas you could gain from visiting other PMCs across the country? What if you could visit not just a few, not just ten or twenty, not even just one or two hundred—what if you could visit over 700 pregnancy medical clinics? Who would some of the fascinating people be that you would meet? What kinds of expertise would they have? What would their stories be? How might being with them impact your PMC?

When you enter the Sparrow Solutions Group (SSG) neighborhood, you become one of our neighbors, benefitting a little bit from of each contact we’ve had with each of you. As iron sharpens iron, so you sharpen one another. Though you may never meet directly, you have an indirect impact on each other just by being part of the SSG community as we meet with you to brainstorm, observe, evaluate or train. Our community is international and brings to you many valuable ideas, insights, and perspectives.

Every center we work with becomes a part of Sparrow’s existence. As the Master weaver weaves our lives, it is an intricate tapestry that has beautiful threads of experience combined with our team’s expertise. What does the tapestry look like when I take a thread of gold from our fund raising expert from Seattle, and combine it with a bit of purple yarn from Kentucky, add in a thread of green for an international view? The result is a well-rounded, broad vision, and clear understanding of what can be.

Our neighbors include many that are similar to you but from a different perspective. Unlike the neighborhoods you might visit, we have both rural and urban neighbors, both city and country cousins, neighbors from the West Coast, East Coast, Gulf Coast, from the Mid-south, Midwest, and everywhere in between.

The better we know your PMC, the better positioned we are to recognize and connect neighbors, to optimize all of our neighbors, to improve our neighborhood, and help our neighborhood as a whole provide better messaging. We are willing to ask for support on your behalf…as we share an armrest on a flight, or order a meal at a local restaurant. We are willing to share our story in order to reach others for you. We trust that every encounter has value.
It is our responsibility to take full advantage of what God has positioned us to do. PMC’s are filled with gifted people. You are among them.

As a Pregnancy Medical Clinic (PMC) you have a plethora of neighbors: other PMCs, private physicians’ offices, health departments, colleges, high schools, churches, businesses, social groups like Rotary, support ministries like the Knights of Columbus, vendors providing tools you need, umbrella organizations providing conferences and resources, women’s reproductive service providers such as Planned Parenthood, as well as donors who are invested in your success. Within your own PMCs and homes are neighbors God has placed in your life. Look to your co-workers and remind them that they are gifted and a gift.

I believe it will benefit you to know some of our neighbors in a new way, to see our perspective and the impact of our neighbors and you.

Let’s get into the introductions and the value each brings to you.

First, let’s take a look at the Global Missions Health Conference (GMHC). How does our attendance and involvement with such a conference benefit you? After all, you’re not serving a global mission…or are you? GMHC has been something I’ve attended for about 7 years. GMHC breakout sessions cover international and domestic medical missions with presentations on topics related to compassion fatigue, human trafficking, free medical clinics, nursing on the mission field, physician involvement in financially challenged settings, and medical student opportunities. Attendees include RN’s, MD’s, PA’s, nursing students and medical students.

As a result of attending, our curriculum includes information on networking with the local Federally Qualified Health Center or FQHC. Through our GMHC involvement, we get to inquire with many attendees about their domestic volunteer opportunities and encourage those same medical professionals to visit the local PMC and consider the unique opportunity to volunteer.

Along with the networking that happens, there is always the opportunity to speak with medical professionals from many countries. Do you see a benefit in being able to speak to physicians and staff from Haiti when you live in Florida and have Haitian refugees at your center/clinic? Next, let’s look at a medical conference that you may recognize…or should recognize: the Society of Diagnostic Medical Sonographers (SDMS). As an organization, we encourage the RN sonographer to attend this conference to gain a broad perspective to sonography. We hold debriefing sessions so everyone can share in discussions of what was learned and how to use it in the PMC setting.

As a result of attending, we add details to our training that impact the PMC as a whole, details that have a direct impact on the Risk Management of the PMC. It was at the SDMS Educators Tutorial/Track that we learned the Ultrasound Ergonomics is a mandatory component of training. When considering how many sonographers have shoulder injuries, it is the responsibility of the trainer to train about this aspect of scanning. Whether we do one patient per day or ten per day, it is important to protect the organization from staff or volunteer outcome like a workman’s compensation case due to a shoulder injury.

Who else is in our neighborhood that might have that item you need? You may not need to borrow a cup of sugar, but it may be just what you’re looking for when you ask yourself; “what else are people doing to raise funds?” It may be just the connection you need when you discuss accreditation, where to purchase clinic space, separating medical services from support services, space utilization, capacity planning, staff design, options related to professional credentials, mainstreaming your clinic, website design, or patient marketing.

We love our neighbors and look forward to sharing more about them with you! If you’d like to know more about some of your neighbors on our Sparrow team, click here. You might just meet a new friend!

Connie Ambrecht
Sparrow Solutions Group Founder & CEO