PITTSBURG, Kan. —
The Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas became mobile Friday with the arrival of the first mobile medical clinic in Kansas designed to support public schools.
The Kid Care Connection mobile health van will begin providing services to Pittsburg’s four elementary schools, the middle school and the high school in August. The van was purchased with a $370,000 federal grant provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
“It’s just like this clinic, but on wheels,” said Dawn McNay, the health center’s director of operations, Friday morning as she and other staff learned more about the 38-foot van’s features from a representative of Farber Specialty Vehicles in Columbus, Ohio.
The van is equipped with an exam rooms on each end, a central area to be used for patient registration and waiting, and an area for lab draws. It includes a wheelchair lift and a refrigerator for vaccines.
Nearly 2,000 school-based health centers operate nationwide, according to the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care, but such a clinic is a first in Southeast Kansas, said Krista Postai, health center director.
The health center already serves 12,000 children a year at its physical location, 3011 N. Michigan Ave., as well as thousands at its satellite locations in Baxter Springs, Columbus and Iola. Postai said most of those children are underinsured or uninsured.
Postai said the ability of parents to get children to a physician, either for transportation, financial or work reasons, during the school year limits the care those children receive.
Years ago, Postai envisioned a school-based clinic eliminating some of those barriers. The health center piloted the concept two years ago inside Westside Elementary School, and had “great response.”
“We saw anywhere from five to 20 patients in a half-day,” said Cheryl Rajotte, a nurse practitioner with the health center.
The district has a student population of about 2,500, and approximately 520 teachers and staff. Rajotte said the van will serve as a medical resource for children or teachers who get sick at school or who come to school showing signs of illness — a sore throat or earache, for example — and are unable to visit a physician’s office.
Parents and siblings also are eligible for service.
The clinic will spend a day a week at Pittsburg High School and Pittsburg Community Middle School, from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. It will spend at least a half-day each week at each of the district’s four elementary schools: George Nettles, Lakeside, Meadowlark and Westside.
Rajotte said the van also will assist the Pittsburg school district with prevention through dental, vision and hearing screenings, as well as sports physicals and immunizations. Services will be provided to anyone, regardless of ability to pay, but written consents signed by parents are required for children.
“We are not here to replace someone’s medical home, just to be an option if a family chooses,” she said.
The mobile medical van will bill a patient’s insurance, if the patient is insured, and will accept whatever that insurance company pays.
“There will be no out-of-pocket,” McNay said.
Rajotte said she plans to work with each school’s nurse on wellness education.
When school is not in session, McNay said the van is to be used in support of community wellness.
“It’s capable of being just about anywhere,” she said.
Open door
While the van is not intended to provide care for chronic medical conditions, Rajotte said staff would provide anyone who shows up with such conditions access to medical resources.
Local News
Related Photos
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Dr. Corin Wilde, a Pittsburg podiatrist, and Krista Postai, CEO of the Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas, look at features in a new mobile medical van that the clinic took possession of on Friday. The van will spend one day a week at each of Pittsburg's schools throughout the school year.
Discussion
Health center to roll to schools this fall in new mobile medical van
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