Promoting access to chronic illness management and nursing education in a rural Illinois nurse-led mobile health unit

Preventable mortality between rural and urban communities demonstrates disparities for nonmetropolitan areas, with chronic illness representing four of the five leading causes of death, including heart disease, stroke, respiratory disease, and cancer. Nurse-led mobile health units (MHUs) provide an efficient approach to improving access to screening and managing chronic care for vulnerable communities. Point-of-care (POC) testing provides a convenient approach for nurses to monitor various diagnoses in mobile settings for rural patients who often lack access to a car or public transportation. Additionally, this testing has been linked to improved patient awareness and adherence to chronic care diagnosis and management. This article describes a nurse-led MHU in a rural region that demonstrated significant improvements in the identification and management of chronic illness using POC testing while training advanced practice nursing students to provide clinical care. Literature is lacking in providing clinical experiences for nurses to lead MHUs within nurses' college programs. Implementing a rural nurse educational program in conjunction with a nurse-led MHU offers the opportunity to train the next generation of advanced practice registered nurses to lead mobile health care with sensitivity to the cultural needs of vulnerable underserved communities, with the potential for improving health equity and access to chronic care management.