Page 7 - 2021 MHA Start-up Guide

Mobile delivery of medical and health care modalities is increasingly seen as an import-
ant, innovative expansion of physical capacity, clinical capability and improved access
to those underserved by existing health systems . However, barriers to entry due to the
complex nature of mobile medical care delivery or premature failure of programs before
they become sustained, are of ongoing concern within the mobile care sector . In order
to assist new programs with an understanding of the multiple, interconnected issues that
are involved we have prepared this Guide based on feedback from attendees at the Mo-
bile Healthcare Association’s Intensive Training Course . It is our intent that this Guide
will provide insight into the broad spectrum of issues for you to consider in the planning,
community health needs assessment, care delivery model choice, vehicle design and
procurement as well as the challenges of making your program transition from ideas into
mobile operation .

Elizabeth Wallace
Executive Director
Mobile Healthcare Association

Welcome to the Mobile Healthcare Association’s Mobile Healthcare Program Startup Guide.
If you’re reading this, you’re considering joining an international network of more than 2,000 pro-
grams serving millions of our nation’s most vulnerable residents in North America — and helping
to change the way we think about public health delivery . Whether you’ve participated in a mobile
healthcare program before, or are just starting to consider this path, you probably have a few
questions about what’s required to build a solution that delivers patient or client care efficiently
and effectively.

Unfortunately, we won’t have all of the answers because there’s
no one way to create a mobile health program . As Cedars-Sinai
Program Director and Mobile Healthcare Association board We won’t have all of the
member Michele Rigsby Pauley says, “If you’ve seen one answers because there’s no one
mobile clinic, you’ve seen one mobile clinic .” Urban or ru-
ral; medical, dental or vision; pediatric or primary; vehi- way to create a mobile health
cle-based or non-vehicle-based — each and every pro- program. As Cedars-Sinai Program
gram fulfills a unique community need in a unique way. Director and Mobile Healthcare
Association board member Michele
This means the answers you’re seeking are just as
unique. What we can do, however, is make sure that Rigsby Pauley says, “If you’ve
you’re asking the right questions and seeking resources seen one mobile clinic,
in the right places here, at the beginning . To do that, we’ve you’ve seen one
leveraged the collective intelligence of Mobile Healthcare
Association members and colleagues, people who’ve spent mobile clinic.”
decades treating many of those millions of clients we men-
tioned earlier . (Check our acknowledgements . There are some
well-known names in mobile healthcare there .)

MOBILE HEALTHCARE ASSOCIATION 5