Maggie McKay (Host): Not everyone has access to a clinic. Maybe it's a transportation issue or some other reason. So wouldn't it be ideal if there was a medical clinic that was closer to you? The good news is, there is! Here to tell us more about it is Dr. Beth Weitensteiner, Site Medical Director at ICHS Holly Park Medical, and Tram Le, Health Center Manager. Welcome to Together We Rise, a podcast from International Community Health Services. ICHS advocates for health as a human right and welcomes all in need of care, regardless of health, immigration status, or ability to pay. I'm your host, Maggie McKay. Thank you both for being here today. We appreciate your time.

Let's start with you, Tram. What is a mobile medical clinic?

Tram Le: A mobile medical clinic is an off site visit. We actually come in to patients. We go to a designated location where it's closer to patients rather than a patient have to come to our clinic. And it's a scaled down to an actual clinic. And the reason I'm saying it's a scaled down because, imagine we just have one exam room, one provider, one MA in that small van that provides office visits to a patient, and there will be a certain visit that cannot be provided at the mobile clinic.

So it's kind of limited a little bit for the mobile clinic.

Host: And why is the ICHS mobile medical clinic needed in our community?

Tram Le: When, Dr. Beth come to me and tell me about we would like to do a mobile clinic and I confident to say yes, because this story have been stuck in me for quite some time. Cause I remember one day I walked into a lobby of the clinic and I saw a elderly patient who sitting in the clinic since 8 o'clock in the morning until one o'clock. I still see her in the clinic, and I come to her and I check in on her and I say, Oh, you still here? Have you been helped? Why are you still here? What are you waiting for? And she say, Oh, no, no, I have already done with my visit, but I'm still here because I have to wait for my daughter to finish her work and come back here and pick me up.

So she packed her lunch, sitting in the clinic, eating lunch, because her daughter dropped her off at the clinic for a visit, and then her daughter go to work, and come to the clinic to pick her up after that. What if we can bring the service closer to her? So she can just come and come back home. So she don't have to sit the whole day in the clinic, that one.

And it's also to meet the demanding of expanding of our patient populations. Holly Park, we cannot expand our space, unfortunately, but then we can bring our service to our patients, closer, for patients who have transportation barrier. And it's also to expand our new patient access. As we cannot expand our space, our provider cannot do much more.

So since we are launching our mobile clinic, we able to cut down our new patient access lead time from three to four months to one to seven days. So, what happen is that if the new patients call in, we offer them to go to a mobile clinic and patient had an option to at least get them into a new patient appointment.

And then they can have an option that if the mobile location is closer to their house, then they can continue to come back to the mobile location for their follow up. But if they are closer to the clinic at Holly Park, then they can come to the Holly Park for their care.

Host: Dr. Weitensteiner, can you please give an example of when the ICHS mobile clinic provided care to a patient that maybe was not available to them at a typical health clinic?

Beth Weitensteiner, DO, FAWM, FAAFP: Well, to tag on to what Tram said, the goal of the mobile clinic is to provide access to healthcare and it's not that they couldn't get the healthcare at our clinic, but we need to move our clinic service is closer to them. So we were in Federal Way on one of our first days and an 82 year old patient, well established with ICHS, a Filipino grandma, she came in and she said, you need to come here all the time.

I live five minutes away. And because you are here, my son did not have to take time off work to drive me from Federal Way to Holly Park and then drive me home again. She said, if you come here, It maintains her independence, we take care of her, and it also has a financial impact on their family, so her son is able to continue to work.

And the same token for our moms and their kids. We had a little 32 year old, We had a Vietnamese speaking mom who had two kids under the age of five who needed their well child. We happened to be at the Kent Clinic, again, five minutes from their home. The family has one car. Dad didn't have to take time off from work.

She was able to walk down the street with her kids, come to the clinic, get their vaccines, and then go back home. So not only healthcare, but all those things that matter in terms of social determinants of health. And trying to, uh, equalize the playing field a little bit so that regardless of where you are, you can get access to healthcare without putting serious stress on your family, and their resources.

So it really has been well received and as Tram said, it has improved our ability to provide access to new patients. And for our new patients who are primarily new immigrant families, they know ICHS provides culturally and linguistically appropriate care. And that's why if we can provide that care in a convenient location close to their homes for their first visits, they're just really comfortable.

It's an embrace. It's an embrace of community provided by our staff. So we really are privileged to be able to do this.

Host: What a difference you're making with that. I mean, it really puts a face on it when you tell these individualized stories that a lot of people take for granted that not everyone has two cars, not every family has one car and taking off work and all of those issues that people need help with but maybe they can't get it for those reasons.

So good for you. Doctor, what services does the mobile clinic provide?

Beth Weitensteiner, DO, FAWM, FAAFP: So, our mobile clinic is pretty well equipped. It has a bed and then the ability to do preventive exams both for children and for adults. We have a little refrigerator inside so we can keep our vaccines cold and we can provide vaccines. We can do small procedures, not big procedures.

And then we can provide acute care resources. What we don't do is we don't draw labs, and we don't do point of care labs, that would require any kind of blood draws there. So again, we're trying to establish both safety for our staff, safety for our patients, and just understand the limitations of a mobile clinic.

But the big thing is to get them access. And so regarding labs, even though we can't draw them, at the mobile site, our partner laboratory have draw sites all throughout the Puget Sound area. And so we can give them the location where they could go to get their labs drawn that is still fairly close to their home.

And we can still see the results and respond to those as needed.

Host: That's great. Tram, how does the ICHS mobile medical clinic operate? Like the schedule, the hours, the location, etc.

Tram Le: We are really grateful for our partnership. So currently right now, ICHS partnership with the Y-M-C-A in Auburn and Kent and also Big Y Supermarket group in Renton. So we are operate on Wednesday and Thursday from nine to 4:00 PM and so for Auburn locations; we are coming on the first and the third week, and for Renton, we come in on the second and the fifth week.

And Kent location, we come on the fourth week. And the reason we chose to pick that schedule, because we want it to be consistent for our patients. So they know exactly this is the schedule, this is the consistency where the mobile gonna be coming. So it's easy for our patients. And we're grateful for this partnership.

Host: And what are some of the challenges of operating a mobile medical clinic?

Tram Le: I will say that we would like to get our word out more so that the community around that service area know more about our mobile clinic, because right now we more serving our ICHS patients. And some of the new patients, but they know and they contact us, but we want to spread the word to the patients within the local area to know and they will be able to seek care where it's more convenient to the community around that area.

Beth Weitensteiner, DO, FAWM, FAAFP: I think just like anything, as we start a mobile clinic, then we see the need of how grand it would be if we could serve all of these people all the time, and just the limitations of, what is your access? What are your resources? And again, just being able to get the word out, is kind of one of the first barriers is to make sure that people know we do have a mobile clinic, we can get close to you.

Host: Tram, what's the future of the ICHS mobile clinic? Do you have plans on expanding operations?

Tram Le: Dr. Beth and I talk about it, but it's more about resources and what can we do with a lot of help. But we do talking about OB days, well child check days, the sports day where we can do a back to school day because there's a lot you can do for our patients, a lot of events that you can do, with a lot of partnership, collaborate with a lot of other community and partnership out there so that you can do a health fair days where you can bring both the medical and the dental van.

What you can make convenient, because, like, take advantage of, like, the back to school when, the kids will need their vaccinations, the well child check, and then when the sport for the season, they will need all that to play sport, so we have a lot of planning, to expanding those service and be able to provide that to our patient and community.

Maggie McKay (Host): Dr. Weitensteiner, would you like to add anything?

Beth Weitensteiner, DO, FAWM, FAAFP: I think to capitalize on what Tram said, we really want to engage and think how can we take groups that could benefit from a mobile service and prenatal care is one of those focus things, that we always think about. Could we get all of the prenatal patients in a given geographic area in South Seattle, South King County, who have lots of little kids already.

It's really hard for them to get into the clinic for a prenatal visit. Could we provide community based prenatal care at least for part of their pregnancy period? So we're exploring all of those options. I think, the ideas are limitless. And we just have to find out which ones we could really tackle and really make happen.

Host: Well, it sounds like you have so many bases covered and so many great plans for the future. Thank you both for sharing your expertise and this useful information on the ICHS mobile clinic.

Beth Weitensteiner, DO, FAWM, FAAFP: Thank you.

Tram Le: Thank you.

Host: Again, that's Dr. Beth Weitensteiner and Tram Le. To find out more, please check out our website at ichs.com. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and look at our entire podcast library for topics of interest to you. I'm Maggie McKay. Thanks for listening to Together We Rise, a podcast from International Community Health Services.