Taryn Smith is new Behavioral Tele-Health Provider at Veterans Memorial Hospital Clinic in Waukon
Taryn Smith ... Submitted photo.
New behavioral tele-health services are available at the Veterans Memorial Hospital Medical Clinic in Waukon. Taryn Smith, MSN, RN, APRN, PMHNP-BC, FNP-BC, is the new provider who is available, via tele-health, Monday and Wednesday, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The contracted tele-health company, Array, provided the clinic with this provider who specializes in psychiatry and can help with medication management.
Smith is employed as a Nurse Practitioner providing scheduled care telepsychiatry services through Array Behavioral Care. She is double-board certified as a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP-BC) and Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP-BC), accredited nationally through the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC).
Although she initially started out in the nursing field working at the bottom of the career ladder as an unlicensed direct care staff member in a group home for developmentally disabled adults, Smith most recently graduated from Johns Hopkins University with her post-graduate certificate in the PMHNP specialty in August of 2018. She had previously obtained her Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) degree in the FNP track from Washburn University in 2015.
Smith has additionally completed her Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree from Wichita State University in 2011, her Associate of Applied Science (AAS) in Nursing from Butler Community College in 2009, and her AAS and technical certificate in Practical Nursing in 2007. Prior to achieving her nursing degrees, she had also obtained technical certification and experience working as a Nurse Aide (CNA) and Medication Aide (CMA).
Smith’s career in nursing has included various experiences caring for developmentally disabled adults in group home and in-home care settings as an unlicensed direct care staff member, then CNA and later, CMA; geriatric patients in nursing homes with regular assignment in the dementia unit as a CNA, CMA and later, Registered Nurse (RN); and inpatients of a couple of small, rural hospitals in the Medical/Surgical, Telemetry, Pediatric and occasionally, Obstetric units, as a CNA and later, RN. She has been licensed and working in her home state of Kansas as a RN since 2009 and an Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN) since 2015.
Smith is now also fully licensed as a RN and APRN in the states of Illinois and Iowa. She has approximately five years of advanced practice experience thus far, providing outpatient psychotropic medication management and mental health care services to patients across the lifespan in primarily community mental health center settings, including over two years of telepsychiatry service provision. Smith specializes in the evaluation, diagnosis, treatment and management of various depressive, anxious, obsessive-compulsive and mood disorders, trauma- and stressor-related disorders, and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). She also treats emotional and behavioral disturbances, such as aggression, that are frequently associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), psychotic disorders, and various disruptive, impulse-control and conduct disorders.
“We are so happy to be offering this much-needed service and will do our best to fill patients in the next day or as soon as we possibly can,” states Laura Baxter, Clinic Director. “We also look very forward to having a full-time nurse practitioner this fall who specializes in behavioral health who will begin working in our clinic. We will continue to expand in this behavioral line as we grow since we see this as a huge need in our community. We are thankful for both of these behavioral health providers and encourage patients to reach out to us for appointments.”
Patients do need to be referred to visit with Smith by their Veterans Memorial Hospital medical clinic provider or the hospital’s ER. Anyone who has not yet established care at the clinic will need to do so in order to take advantage of this new service. All providers in the medical clinic are currently accepting new patients.
Once care is established, the referral will be made and patients will be able to visit with this tele-health provider in the tele-health room. For more information, call the Veterans Memorial Hospital Medical Clinic-Waukon at 563-568-5530.
