RN Idaho - May 2021

May, June, July 2021 RN Idaho • Page 15
Idaho Nurse Practitioner Brad Bigford To Be Featured in Johnson
& Johnson Nursing Recognition Public Service Announcement
Johnson & Johnson Nursing (J&J), that has
promoted nursing through national advertisements
and public service announcements over the
past decade, has announced a new nursing
recognition program launch for 2021. This is a part
of celebrating the international year of the nurse
that has been expanded from 2020 to include
2021. J&J searched nationally for nurses who have
been creative and who have impacted the health of
people in their communities to be featured in this
national program. Brad Bigford, MSN, APRN-FNP,
was nominated by Idaho nurses to be a part of
this national campaign based on his presentation
at the November LEAP 2020 conference about his
home visit practice. The selection was rigorous and
Brad was selected to be featured in the national
program. Here was what Idaho submitted to
nominate him.
Brad Bigford front yard house call
Brad Bigford FNP at COVID testing site
Brad has been a nurse since 2006 and a family
nurse practitioner since 2012. In 2016 he started
a small mobile urgent care practice to treat kids
and adults in their homes for any reason that they
would use a walk-in clinic, UTIs, strep throat, ear
infections, rashes, lacerations, etc. The mission
was to increase peoples’ access to healthcare. The
service is named Table Rock Mobile Medicine.
Things were going fine before COVID. When
COVID-19 hit Idaho in March 2020, all of the
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) was suddenly
gone. Table Rock Mobile Medicine had over 5,500
followers on Facebook so they put out a call for
help. Anyone with cleaning supplies, PPEs such
as gloves, eye protection, masks, etc., was asked
to consider donating them. Brad started having
clinics reach out stating they were also having PPE
access problems. An ER nurse who works at a
small rural hospital called saying she was sharing
a N95 with another ER nurse and they were
seeking mask supplies. There were also home
health and hospice providers and family practice
clinics requesting supplies. In the first month of the
pandemic Table Rock had received and distributed
over 300 masks, 50 goggles, dozens of 3D printed
face shields and other items at a time when you
could not buy hand sanitizer.
At the start of the pandemic Table Rock Mobile
Medicine only had 2 providers and by September
it had grown to five NPs because of the volume
of patients and people being afraid to leave
their homes to go to a clinic. During the first few
months the NPs did many visits on people’s
front doorsteps. They masked up from the very
beginning but some people still didn’t want them
in the homes. They gave people IV fluids on their
front porch, diagnosed pneumonia in the front
yard of a man who was sick with COVID and
occasionally needed to call 911 for people who had
put off seeking treatment because they were afraid
of going to the hospital.
In April Table Rock partnered with a local lab
who had access to COVID-19 tests at a time when
getting any kind of test outside of an emergency
room was extremely difficult. Brad participated in
establishing a non-profit called ACT Idaho (ACT =
Access COVID Testing) to make it as affordable as
possible. ACT operated from April to August and
tested thousands of people. Brad would call any of
the positive patients and notify them of their result
and how to quarantine. Brad worked in a pop-up
tent in the lab parking lot where he would screen
patients and discuss the test with them.
Finally, Table Rock is a very pro-science/
evidence based treatment clinic. NPs advocate
for vaccines on social media and do a yearly flu
shot clinic going to people’s homes to vaccine
families. Last year they vaccinated 1,500 people
in their homes, often in people’s yards. Idaho
has quite a vocal anti-vaccine group and one
social media post about an upcoming flu shot
clinic at a men’s barbershop that was focused on
increasing men’s access to healthcare and influenza
vaccines resulted in hundreds to thousands of
harassing texts messages, insulting comments
and threatening phone calls. This incident was
reported in the Idaho Statesman newspaper, https://
www.idahostatesman.com/living/health-fitness/
Brad Bigford FNP believe nurses
article235680912.html. That article led to a follow-up
article published in the New York Times last March,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/health/
vaccines-protest-doctors.html. These events did not
negatively impact the work that Brad has done to
promote access for both men and women in Idaho.
Like most nurses, Brad is a supporter of
vaccinations. He tries to be proactive & positive in
promoting vaccines because of their importance
in saving the lives of children all over the world.
He even came up with a version of Mr. Roger’s
“Won’t You Be My Neighbor” that he call, “Let Us
Be Caring Neighbors,” https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=DaSSd7hif1E.
Idaho nurses are incredibly happy that Brad has
been selected by J&J to be featured in a national
recognition public service program. His efforts
to coordinate PPE distribution, promote access
to COVID testing through ACT, provide followup
education for COVID positive patients through
ACT, and for increasing at-home provider care
throughout the pandemic demonstrates what a
creative entrepreneurial nurse can accomplish. For
updates on when these PSAs featuring Brad will be
released check the nursing association websites
for announcements and be on the look-out for the
J&J PSAs on regular television.
Brad Bigford outside COVID clinic