Jill Schramm/MDN Jerilyn Kersten, Minot clinic manager for Sanford Health, stands in the Highway 2 Clinic in southeast Minot March 16.

Bringing care closer to the patient is the idea behind the healthcare delivery system established by Sanford Health in Minot. In addition to the primary care offered at its Highway 2 and Northwest clinics in Minot, Sanford brings an array of specialty providers to Minot.

“We have almost a different specialist every day,” said Jerilyn Kersten, Sanford’s clinic manager in Minot. “There’s probably three days out of the month that we don’t have a specialty scheduled at one clinic or the other.”

Sanford’s visiting specialists range from diabetes educators to obstetricians and cardiologists.

“We have some that fly from Fargo, like pediatric cardiology or pediatric endocrinology,” Kersten said.

Through telemedicine, local patients can connect with even more specialists, including those in Sanford’s Sioux Falls, South Dakota, headquarters.

The decision on which specialists to bring to Minot is based on community interest and feedback from Sanford’s local primary-care providers, Kersten said.

She added Sanford’s local providers have relationships with the visiting specialists that enable them to pick up the phone and talk to that expert or get their patients into the care of that specialist as needed.

“All of our specialists are really good about answering questions and, and they know the providers here and they work well together,” she said.

The access to specialty care means patients can avoid or limit the amount of time they spend on the road. Even patients who come from Williston or Bottineau can save on driving time compared to traveling to Bismarck or Fargo, Kersten said. For seniors or families with young children, those shorter or less frequent drives are particularly appreciated, she said.

“They really are quite grateful that they don’t have to make those extra miles and extra trips,” she said.

Kersten said Sanford has five full-time family medicine nurse practitioners or physician assistants and a part-time family medicine doctor who serve the Minot clinics along with walk-in providers and specialists.

Sanford’s Highway 2 Clinic, which it acquired in 2012, started with occupational medicine and added walk-in care and later physical therapy. A second family medicine clinic, the Northwest Clinic, opened in Minot in 2016.

The Northwest Clinic now offers behavioral health services and recently added two new family medicine providers in physician assistant Christine Sauter and nurse practitioner Kelsey Duchsherer. Duchsherer, who came last October, has a women’s health focus and has enabled Sanford to offer more same-day or walk-in care.

Both clinics also have laboratory and some diagnostic services.

“You don’t need to be a Sanford patient to have those done, so you can come in from other providers, too,” Kersten said.