A health technician walks a string of visitors through a miniature clinic inside the University of Arkansas for Medical Science’s mobile health unit.
Woman speaking: "So where do you service? Where have you gone? And what have you done with this?”
Man speaking: “We do health screenings, health screenings, vaccinations, cleaning COVID shots. We also take this over to Huntsville for prenatal care.”
The fully equipped van is just one method of outreach that the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ new Institute for Community Health Innovation is implementing. UAMS' eighth institution is based out of Springdale had an official opening and ribbon cutting last Tuesday at it's location near Don Tyson Parkway and Interstate 49.
That afternoon staff piled out of their offices and into the parking lot along with community partners to tour the space and see some of the services the institute will provide.
Krista Langston is the Executive Director of community programs for UAMS Northwest. Standing outside the mobile unit she says the center's goal is to reach more people across the region that traditional services may be missing.
Langston: “Our units, they have a full exam room in the back and then two screening stations within each unit. So we can do most services, we can do some telehealth on the units. Right now. We've been primarily offering vaccines and preventative health screenings, but we'll be launching women's health services and prenatal care in June."
Pearl McElfish ducks under a banner of red and white balloons at the entrance of the building. McElfish is the Institute's Director and she says compared to other states Arkansas faces significant health gaps - like high maternal and infant mortality, high rates of diabetes, heart disease and obesity. So, she says, UAMS recognized they needed to approach health care differently to get people the service they need.
McElfish: "Not everyone's comfortable going to the doctor. In fact, most people are pretty intimidated or scared by going to the doctor. But people live their lives outside the hospital walls outside clinic walls. And so we really try to shift everything to going where people are, people are at school, people are at churches, people are at jobs. And so why can't we go where people are and provide health education, access to health care, and other critical components of health, right where people live every day. So it's really shifting the paradigm rather than saying, everybody come to us. We're really saying where are you every day? And how can we go to you and make living your healthiest life as easy as it can be."
She says the institute will offer diabetes screening and education through partnerships with local churches, nutrition programs through more than 20 school districts, and other direct-to-community programming.
McElfish: "Other partnerships have included the pharmacy network, every small rural town, they may not have a doctor but they probably have a pharmacy. And so we've partnered with pharmacies, to be able to talk to patients really early provide things like diabetes, self management, prenatal care. I know I'm saying again, but those are two of the biggest obstacles or challenges in Arkansas."
McElfish added upcoming projects include prenatal screenings in maternal health deserts and a mobile health clinic for workers at local Tyson plants.
Although based in Northwest Arkansas the institute has offices and programs across the state with 170 employees.
McElfish: "We are primarily grant funded so we have federal grants. We also have local foundation grants. We bring in 20 million in federal funding each year. The economic impact of that is more than 55 million. And so we're bringing jobs to the region and also improving health at the same time."
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