Joining Forces to Improve the Well-Being of the City’s Most Vulnerable Children

Pictured above are the medical associates of the KIDS Mobile Medical Clinic/Ronald McDonald Care Mobile in Washington, D.C.,

CVS Health and MedStar Georgetown University Hospital Partnership for KIDS Mobile Medical Clinic

Eleanor Wingfield considers the associates at her doctor’s office more like family. The 55-year-old resident of Southwest Washington, D.C., has been a MedStar Georgetown University Hospital patient for more than 15 years. At first, she would bring her daughter for medical care. Now, her daughter has her own children and they, too, are patients.

However, their doctor’s office isn’t the kind of “office” you might imagine.

Wingfield’s grandchildren are among the more than 800 children seen every year by the KIDS Mobile Medical Clinic/Ronald McDonald Care Mobile®, a 300-square-foot, state-of-the-art MedStar Health medical unit that travels to underserved neighborhoods in Wards 6, 7, and 8, providing medical care to children at no direct cost to their families.

For Wingfield, the mobile clinic gives her family an invaluable medical resource.

“I don’t know what we would do without it. In fact, just yesterday I called because my grandson was really sick,” she says, adding that if she did not have access to the mobile medical clinic, the emergency department would have been the only other option for the toddler, who suffers from asthma. “They got him an appointment the same day, and took excellent care of him, as always.”

And now, thanks to a $150,000 grant from CVS Health, MedStar Health can provide even greater care for children in the area, with expanded services for patients with asthma, mental health concerns, and food insecurity.

The two-year grant has three focus areas: improving the health of children with chronic asthma, addressing food insecurity by helping families access resources to prepare healthy meals, and providing mental health assessments to screen children for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and depression. The grant provides the funds for services such as evaluation, social work, and case management.

Source: http://frac.org/wp-content/uploads/hunger-health-impact-poverty-food-insecurity-health-well-being.pdf

As part of the CVS Health grant, mental health screenings are now fully integrated into routine well-child checkups and new mother visits, with a streamlined system for referring patients to community partners, if needed.

To help asthma patients, the grant funds are used to implement an electronic health records system, making it easier to help patients get the treatment they need.

“With this system, we can look at the big picture and ask ourselves, ‘How can they receive optimal treatment for asthma? Can they afford their medication? Do they know how to use the medication? Can they make it to their follow-up appointments?’” Dr. Rethy says. “Then we can quickly connect them to the resources they need.”

For the third area of focus—food insecurity—the grant is used to implement a screening tool developed by the American Academy of Pediatrics to help identify and assist families who do not have reliable access to food. Children identified as food insecure are referred to community organizations that connect families to food and nutrition resources.

“We can now take our services to a deeper level,” Dr. Rethy says. “This helps us ensure that the children in the communities we serve receive the care they need.”