Mobile Medical
Six Benefits of Using a Mobile Medical Vehicle for Urgent Care Clinics
August 30, 2021
Mobile medical vehicles are used for a variety of purposes. From running blood drives to delivering life-saving vaccines to communities in need, these mobile units benefit the medical community and the people they serve immensely.
One effective way to put a mobile medical vehicle to use is as a mobile urgent care clinic. Urgent care clinics help triage those who are in immediate need of medical services while reducing traffic to overrun emergency rooms.
If you are considering the custom build of a mobile medical vehicle for your clinic, learn more about the top six benefits of using these medical units as mobile urgent care clinics.
1: Bring Care to Communities in Need
In many cases, brick-and-mortar urgent care clinics are placed throughout a community based on available space and the size of the neighboring population. While this can be helpful in serving the majority of a community’s needs, there are populations who wind up being underserved.
Those living in rural locations or outside of major urban centers are often left without the option to quickly and easily access an urgent care clinic. Compounding the issue, many of those in underserved communities are without reliable transportation.
This can lead to patients who do not seek out the medical care they need simply due to the complicated logistics of accessing a clinic.
A mobile urgent care clinic is the perfect solution to this issue. Medical teams can travel between communities, providing access to much-needed help for those who are located far away from brick and mortar clinics.
2: Visit the Homebound
Similar to those who live in rural communities or are without the transportation needed to access a traditional urgent care clinic, there are many patients incapable of leaving their homes. These patients might postpone the medical care they need simply due to the logistics of getting to a clinic.
For medical teams, traveling to a patient’s home in a mobile medical unit can be the perfect solution to this issue. This allows patients who are in need of urgent care services to be seen immediately.
Not only does this help homebound patients access the medical care they need, but it also lessens the pressure on ambulance services. For many communities that are facing shortages of ambulance drivers and vehicle availability, this can help to free up these life-saving units for critical emergencies.
3: Tackle Medical Issues Earlier On
Too often, patients will put off a visit to the doctor until a medical issue becomes a grave concern. When it is difficult to find a nearby urgent care clinic or wait times are long, this can lead to patients postponing medical care for prolonged periods of time.
The end result is that a medical issue that may have been minor becomes major and requires extensive medical care.
A mobile urgent care clinic can help to provide triage care earlier on. Those who are concerned about the inconvenience of visiting a clinic can be quickly and easily seen by a mobile team. This can help tackle medical issues when they are still easily treatable.
4: Increase Community Awareness About Your Clinic
Whether you recently opened up an urgent care clinic in a community, or you are simply looking to improve your community outreach, a mobile urgent care clinic allows you to increase awareness about your clinic’s presence.
By traveling around a community, setting up in office parks and shop parking lots, you can ensure that your clinic’s name becomes recognizable. This, in turn, can drive patients to your stationary clinic when they are in need of urgent care services.
5: Test Out Expansion into a New Area
As the need for medical services continues to increase across communities, it might be time to consider an expansion of your urgent care’s service area.
But before you break ground on a new location and sink a large amount of money into building a new clinic, you can use your mobile urgent care clinic to test out expansion into new areas.
This allows you to gather data on the number of patients seen and determine which location would be ideal for a future brick and mortar space without necessitating a large spend upfront.
6: Diversify Your Clinic’s Services
Beyond just expanding the area you serve, you might be considering adding new services to your urgent care clinic. Perhaps you are thinking about investing in imaging equipment to allow for better diagnostics. Or, maybe you want to add a lab for on-site testing.
Regardless, investing in a mobile urgent care clinic allows you to try out new services without taking up valuable space in your clinic. Instead, you can custom design a mobile urgent care clinic layout that includes your new services. From here, you can begin to gather data on whether or not these services are worth the investment at your brick-and-mortar location.
Work with Summit Bodyworks to Design Your Mobile Urgent Care Clinic
Mobile urgent care clinics offer an array of benefits. If you are thinking of investing in a custom mobile medical vehicle, talk to our team at Summit Bodyworks. We can help you design the perfect layout for your specific needs.
Interested in seeing our work in action? Check out a recent upfit we designed for the Detroit Health Department. Their mobile care unit is built on a 38′ Winnebago chassis and allows them to deliver health care services on the go. We helped the Detroit Health Department design the perfect layout for their needs, ensuring that all necessary equipment was included. With ample storage space and private patient screening rooms, this mobile unit is a great example of how much can be packed into a mobile medical unit.
To learn more about designing a mobile urgent care clinic or any mobile medical vehicle, talk to our team today.
