Thank you, Rotarians, – this happened because of you. The Rotary Mobile Clinic continues to be a beacon of hope for our patients and a source of inspiration for our volunteers, partners, and communities. We received the Wisconsin Hospital Association’s prestigious Global Vision Award - an award is given out to two organizations each year with the hopes that others will create similar programming throughout the state.
(In photos: District Governor Nominee Scott Ryan and Admin Megs visited Rotarian Jason last month for Megs to see the Rotary Mobile Clinic made possible by a Global Grant)
A note from Mobile Medicine Physician Leader – Dr. Sarah Brown, “Mobile Medicine, as we often teach, offers each of us an opportunity to expand our perspective in ways that change the way we practice medicine. Accepting the constraints of our patients’ lives opens our minds and hearts to develop practical and patient-oriented plans that address a person’s needs in a brief moment in time. This work has transformed my clinical practice over the last three years.”
We have expanded our partnership with Gundersen Health System and service offerings. This expansion includes internal medicine resident physicians and surgical resident physicians. Gundersen has received additional funding to improve and increase our work together. One new program will work with at-risk pregnant women in our region – this will be a combination of Rotary Mobile Clinic work, telehealth, and a team including: Community Health Worker, Nurses, Physicians, and addiction specialists. The Gundersen partnership received additional funding to continue to send their Lead Physician educators to oversee the mobile clinic medical work. Lastly, they received funding to expand their mobile clinic operations to every Friday starting in spring of 2024.
We received a multiple year funding grant from the WI Department of Health Services to hire, train and staff the mobile clinic with a full-time Mobile Clinic Coordinator/Community Health Worker. A community health worker is a frontline public health worker. This trusting relationship enables the worker to serve as a liaison/link/intermediary between health/social services and the community to facilitate access to services and improve the quality and cultural competence of service delivery. A community health worker also builds individual and community capacity by increasing health knowledge and self-sufficiency through a range of activities such as outreach, community education, informal counseling, social support and advocacy. We welcomed Gretta, our Bilingual Spanish community health worker in June of 2023.
We’ve partnered with Scenic Bluff Health Center and Mayo Clinic for vaccination and health screening clinics. We continue our strong partnership with Arcadia School District, a school with an 85% Latino student body.
2023 By the Numbers:
79 Mobile Clinic Days
473 Unsheltered/Homeless Patient Visits
116 Rural Latino Patient Visits
589 Total Patient Visits
1232 Medical Volunteer Hours
