Premier Community Health and Wright State University’s Boonshoft School of Medicine Go Mobile to Reach Underserved Patients

By Melissa Dillard, application analyst, Fidelity Health Care

Premier Community Health and Wright State University are collaborating to reach underserved patients in our community through the Dayton Street Medicine project. Starting later this spring, they will host a health clinic once a week in a Premier Community Health mobile unit parked outside of the Dayton Dream Center. The mobile unit is equipped with a check-in room and two patient rooms. Wright State University’s Boonshoft School of Medicine will oversee health care operations. Medical and behavioral health students from the university will help staff the clinic, offering them an excellent opportunity to provide care in a unique setting where they can learn about patients' challenges firsthand.

The clinic’s primary goal is to meet patients where they are and bridge gaps in their health care. Patients will benefit by reducing barriers they may face when accessing care in a traditional setting, such as lack of transportation, no insurance, or not having an established primary care physician. The program will focus on the unhoused, under-housed, and those with addiction or in addiction recovery. Services provided include primary and preventive care, behavioral health support and care navigation, substance use screening and intervention, and case management. A long-term goal is for patients to transition to traditional health care settings as their health improves.

OneOhio Recovery Foundation awarded a two-year, $293,968 grant to fund the program. Anna Murley Squibb, M.D., program director of substance use and addiction services at Premier Health and program director of the Addiction Medicine Fellowship at Wright State University; Marietta Orlowski, Ph.D., professor and chair of population and public health sciences at Wright State University; and Sydney Silverstein, Ph. D., assistant professor in the Center for Interventions, Treatment and Addictions Research worked together to develop this program.

Lynn Foubert, director of Premier Community Health, says of this new endeavor, “Premier Community Health is proud to collaborate with dedicated individuals and organizations to bring essential care to our community's most vulnerable populations, furthering our vision to inspire better health and to serve where it’s needed most."

Back to the February 2025 issue of Premier Pulse