Health

Mobile Healthcare Program

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

January 31, 2002 / 8:40 AM EST / CBS

This mobile health unit is a new way the Ronald McDonald house will be delivering healthcare to those in need. Dr. James Broadhurst, the attending physician of this motorized medical center and the program's director in Worcester, Massachusetts, talks to us about it.

Ronald McDonald House Children's Charities are going to send out eight mobile healthcare facilities throughout the country. Dr. James Broadhurst unveils this new Care Mobile program, which aims to reach disadvantaged youth all across America. This program was tested in the Chicago area for the past two years and proved very successful with over 7,000 children able to receive care. Each unit is operated as a doctor's office on wheels and is staffed by a pediatrician.

Care Mobile is part of what will be an expanding fleet of mobile healthcare units designed to help improve the state and frequency of pediatric healthcare and how it's delivered. Much like the Ronald McDonald Houses that began with a single site in Philadelphia in 1974 and now numbered over 200 internationally, the Charities see the Care Mobile program as the next great step toward helping children and families worldwide. Unlike other mobile healthcare efforts, the Care Mobile program is designed to provide depth, consistency and the continuity of care often missing from existing programs.

The Care Mobile provides healthcare services free of charge to children in under-served communities who have limited access to preventive and basic health care. Unlike most mobile clinics, which operate out of a converted bus or recreational vehicle, the Care Mobile is designed and built specifically as a pediatric healthcare unit and is tailored to the specific needs of the local communities it serves. It offers more sophisticated tests and services than are available in many physicians' offices.

The Care Mobile is staffed with a full-time pediatrician, a pediatric nurse and a unit manager; other staff may include a social worker, dental hygienist and an asthma specialist. Staff members partner with people in the communities they serve to determine health needs, identify children requiring healthcare and schedule appointments.

The Care Mobile is a 40-foot long, 8-foot wide vehicle. The unit can accommodate two patient examination rooms, a laboratory, a pharmacy, a reception area and a medical record area.

The Care Mobile will go a long way toward reducing reliance on expensive and inappropriate health resources, such as hospital emergency departments, it will provide continuity of care, help eligible families acquire government-assisted health insurance and act as a partner with the community to address local childhood health needs.

In less than two years, the program has cared for more than 7,000 children, providing thousands of immunizations, medical screenings, educational sessions, physicals, individual hygiene consultations and hundreds of asthma and pulmonary function tests. Additionally, as a result of te Chicago program, several life-threatening illnesses were detected in children, including congenital heart defects and severe pneumonia, requiring immediate emergency care.

According to information compiled from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, over 11.9 million children have no private health insurance; one in seven children have no health insurance and one in four uninsured children have no regular source of healthcare.