No Roadblocks: How Mobile Primary Care Navigates Barriers to Health Access

Healthcare disparities are widespread across the U.S. Mobile health programming is designed to dismantle systemic healthcare barriers for medically underserved communities. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of two southeastern U.S. mobile primary care programs. Guided by the Social Determinants of Health framework, this descriptive study examines the programs’ patient populations to determine reach and patient medical data to ascertain patients’ connection to the medical system and long-term primary care. Data were collected via electronic health record (EHR) and analyzed in Power BI and R. Basic descriptive, crosstab and chi-square statistics were conducted to assess the patient population and explore patient healthcare engagement prior to and following their initial mobile primary care visit. The results indicate that mobile primary care programs are utilized by systemically underserved groups, with both program A and B’s patient population identifying primarily as Latin/Hispanic (69.6% and 41.3% respectively), uninsured (99.1% and 59.8%), and Spanish-speaking (64.4% and 42.3%). Additionally, each program demonstrates an ability to engage patients in long-term primary care utilization via repeat utilizers (65.5% and 25.9%). McNemar’s chi-square results show that participation in either of the mobile primary care programs has a statistically significant, non-random measurable effect on patient primary care enrollment. Differences in program structure and findings are explored, and recommendations for future practice, research, and policy are discussed.