Scenario

The scarcity of health resources continues to negatively affect communities across the country. Deciding how to allocate scarce resources creates significant ethical challenges for local policymakers and other stakeholders within the community.

You represent a local non-profit community health organization in Chicago. Your organization is compiling data to conduct a needs assessment in order to determine the feasibility of a new community-based mobile health clinic. You have been asked to review the most recent strategic plan for the city of Chicago.

The mobile clinic would offer free preventive care, urgent care, and chronic disease management services to vulnerable citizens of Chicago, who may not otherwise have the financial resources to access quality healthcare services. Your executive summary will be used in the development of a needs assessment for the project.

Your targeted population is an urban, low income community disenfranchised by current health reform policies, high unemployment, a shortage of primary care physicians, and divisive partisan attitudes regarding entitlement programs. The goal of the community-based clinic is to work collaboratively with local health facilities to reduce costs, improve access, and to enhance the quality of care for underserved communities.

Instructions

Review the community health needs assessment linked here that was conducted by the Health Impact Collaborative of Cook County:

POST-South-Report.pdf UPLOADED BELOW

Pages 37 – 49 of the report highlight challenges facing the city with respect to costs, access, and quality of care issues. Write an executive summary addressing the following questions:

What are some of socio-economic factors that affect access to care based on the findings in the report?

What are the critical focus areas identified in the report?

Based on the report’s content, how might the use of a mobile health clinic address the critical focus areas?

What are some of the potential barriers to success for a mobile health clinic?