The Post and Courier: Mobile health expanding across the US, may offer option for rural and underserved SC

NORTH CHARLESTON — Mobile health care provided by clinics on wheels has expanded across the country and might be an option for critical services like prenatal care in rural and underserved areas of South Carolina, officials said.

One Lowcountry provider has already received state funding to help acquire a new mobile unit.

Providing care out in the community might sound radical now but that’s where it began when doctors and midwives made house calls, said Dr. Mollie Williams, executive director of The Family Van and Mobile Health Map at Harvard Medical School.

“They came to your home and your neighborhood,” she said. Williams was the keynote speaker Oct. 19 at a mobile health conference sponsored by Roper St. Francis Healthcare and Boeing.