Health care today is bolstered by science and technology that seems to advance more quickly than it ever has before. But despite amazing technical advances, some argue that the greatest challenge in medicine is getting even basic, routine care to people who need it at a time and in a way that is convenient for them.
Health care providers and leaders like to use the term “improving access,” when discussing how we can make health care better for our patients, but the term warrants some explanation if we’re going to talk about it in a way that makes sense to everyone.
Essentially, it doesn’t matter how great a pool of resources you might have to take care of people if those people can’t get to and use the services! The obstructions, of any type, that get between patients and the resources they need to stay well are care gaps, and they may exist for all sorts of reasons.
Care gaps can exist because of a person’s social situation. Many cannot obtain consistent or quality housing, healthy food, utilities or transportation. Others may be victims of violence from a partner or people in their community. And some may deal with several or all of these social determinants of health.
When trying to close care gaps based on social determinants, health care providers and systems try to partner with community organizations and advocates that can connect people with the resources they need to address these issues.
Care gaps can also exist because of lack of awareness. If, for example, a group of people does not know that regular colonoscopy is recommended to screen for colorectal cancer, that group would be more at risk to die from a cancer that is both preventable and treatable when detected early.
Another source of care gaps is inability to reach a service. Lack of transportation, as mentioned above, can contribute to this, but sometimes a particular service is simply too far away from a patient who needs it. This is common in rural and underserved areas.
And therefore, sometimes the solution is to bring services to those patients.
Health systems, including Geisinger, have begun to invest in large vehicles, often buses, that serve as mobile health clinics that can travel to meet patients where they live. Geisinger’s fleet of mobile units includes a health services bus that monitors patients with diabetes and screens them for diabetic kidney and eye disease, a mobile mammography bus, and a mobile dental health unit.
The mobile dental health unit travels to schools, community centers and pediatricians’ offices to perform dental exams, X-rays, cleanings, fluoride treatments and sealants, provides home oral hygiene education and instruction, and offers nutritional counseling.
This full spectrum of services is provided to all children pre-K through grade 12 at no cost to the patient or to the site at which the unit parks.
Recently, the mobile dental health unit received a $35,000 grant, which will be used to support the unit and to purchase three video-interpreting language translation devices to better serve patients in the Greater Hazleton area and the northeast region.
This is just one way providers and systems can bring health care to people who need it, but it’s a trend that needs to continue to better serve our communities.