Pa. has set aside $10 million to expand the state’s mobile clinic units

If the patient doesn’t come to the clinic, bring the clinic to the patient.

That’s the mission behind a new $10 million infusion of federal money, set aside to expand the state’s budding mobile clinic infrastructure, State Sen. Art Haywood announced last week.

“Health equity is health access,” said Haywood, who sees mobile clinics as critical for underserved urban and rural communities.

According to the National Association of Community Health Centers, there has been a 40% increase in the number of mobile clinics nationwide since 2019, a rise spurred by the pandemic and the need for COVID-19 testing and immunizations. Clinics offer a range of services including cancer screenings, dental examinations, family planning support, and COVID vaccinations.

“In smaller towns and rural areas, they get to be the emergency room,” said Haywood.

Nationally, health centers operate about 755 individual mobile units, with 70% serving vulnerable populations in urban areas, according to 2020 data from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration.

The Pennsylvania Association of Community Health Centers estimates that half of the state’s Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC), which provide primary and preventive care in underserved areas regardless of a patient’s ability to pay, either have or are purchasing a mobile unit. Philadelphia is home to about 40 FQHCs.

“Mobile clinics take health care to the people and make it much more accessible. It’s the wave of the future,” said Haywood, Democratic chair of the state Senate’s Health and Human Services Committee. “Funding and expanding mobile health clinics and community heath centers will help communities obtain access to health care across the commonwealth.”

Haywood has also developed the first mobile clinic registry in the state to track the location of mobile clinics, which he says the Pennsylvania Health Department is in the process of completing.

Philadelphia is set to receive $3.7 million in new funding to expand the mobile workforce, increase accessibility or provide trauma-informed care to communities of color at 20 local clinics. Nine of those clinics have mobile units.

The funds come from the COVID-19 Public Health Initiative, which was created as part of the 2021 American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief program that was designed to stimulate the economy. “I called it ‘Biden’s billions’ that went to the state and then into mobile clinics,” said Haywood.

Haywood first became a proponent for mobile clinics while he was serving as a member of Gov. Tom Wolf’s COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force and saw firsthand how the pandemic laid bare the disparities in health care, he said. But, he warned, additional funding will be required from the state to continue developing and maintaining mobile clinics. “I would like to see the commonwealth have an annual appropriation [for mobile clinics],” he said.