Practicing direct primary care with an integrative focus

Wendy Pecoraro has been a family nurse practitioner for over 20 years. She has worked in an urban emergency department for most of that time. Her practice in integrative care started to emerge in 2010, after attending multiple conferences through Harvard’s Institute of Lifestyle Medicine. It soon became apparent that most of her emergency department patients could have used some degree of lifestyle modification long before she saw them. In her last couple of years with the hospital, Wendy proposed and piloted a comprehensive wellness program for the employees, while attending Methodist College for a post master’s certificate in Wellness and Health Promotion.

This experience and education, along with a passion to care for the whole person, evolved into a natural partnership with Omaha Integrative Care. Pecoraro’s practice is based on the integrative care model, an approach that addresses the full range of physical, emotional, mental, social, spiritual, and environmental influences that affect a person’s health.

Treatments that are natural and less invasive are used whenever possible. Health promotion and prevention of illness are at the forefront of this patient, family, and community-centered practice.

Pecoraro carries a commitment to the trauma-informed care model with her from her days in the emergency department and has an affinity for that population. She has additional training in centering healthcare and provides group visits for those patients living with chronic disease states. She is certified as a Lifestyle Medicine Professional through the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. She enjoys grand mothering, gardening, and the great outdoors.