CBU mobile health clinic makes debut in the community
Riverside, Calif. (Dec. 5, 2024) – California Baptist University’s mobile clinic hit the road for the first time in mid-October, bringing vital medical services to underserved populations while training the next group of nursing students.
Twice a month the mobile clinic visits the Concerned Family, a ministry in Perris, California, that provides meals, groceries and clothes to migrants and underserved and homeless populations.
The mobile clinic is typically staffed by a registered nurse, a family nurse practitioner and a medical assistant or a community health worker, along with about 10 nursing students. The group can provide health education, preventive health screenings and care, including checking blood pressure, doing bloodwork, providing immunizations and writing prescriptions.
CBU is in the planning stages with Riverside County Department of Public Social Services to serve locations in Moreno Valley, Mead Valley, Desert Hot Springs and Beaumont.
When determining what areas the clinic should serve, the university looked at the needs assessment for Riverside County, said Amanda Pitchford, professor of nursing and administrator of the mobile clinic.
“We're seeing that there's a major access issue, and the populations that have the access issues, of course, are minority populations, especially our foster care population,” Pitchford said.
The clinic has a dual purpose: to serve in underserved communities and to provide a clinical site for students.
“It was a shock to me how many people in the community didn't have access to health care or have a lack of knowledge,” said Rebecca Halgemo, a nursing student. “There's a lot of opportunity for educating them as well.”
For Mia Ortega, a nursing student, seeing patients at the mobile clinic gave her a better view of the whole person.
“They come for care at a mobile clinic like this and you see that they live in their car. You can connect the different health concerns,” she said
During the clinic’s first visit to the Perris site, a woman came in with extremely high blood pressure. The nurse on duty called an ambulance but the woman did not want to go to the hospital, even after the risks were explained to her and her husband.
“We had to ask why? What are your hesitations? And then we found out the social aspect of it,” Ortega said.
Their car wouldn’t make it the hospital, and she wondered how she would get home and how they would afford it.
The woman did allow emergency services to transport her and her husband to the hospital for care. The students followed up with her a couple weeks later when she came back to the clinic.
“All these different things play a big role, and they're blocking her from potentially getting medication that would save her life,” Ortega said.
Maddie Gordinier, a nursing student, encouraged future students to come with an open mind.
“We're in a low-income area,” she said. “It could be intimidating not knowing the best way to help but try not to judge anyone. Just be here to serve and help people.”
CBU received the 39-foot-long mobile health clinic in 2023. Its $365,000 cost was made possible through a grant and gifts from generous donors, including the Messner and Downs families from Downs Energy Fuel and Lubricants. The California Department of Public Health approved its designation as a licensed primary care clinic this summer.
“I'm excited about it because a lot of nursing students are so acute-care focused; they think nursing is just in the four walls of a hospital. They are unaware of what community-based nursing practice looks like,” Pitchford said.