The Power of Proximity.
Closing the Distance to Care in Underserved Communities.
What mobile healthcare is, where it works best, and what it takes to design a program that meaningfully improves access to comprehensive, quality care.
A joint publication of Mission Mobile Medical + Association of Clinicians for the Underserved
Source: Mobile Health Map, a program of Harvard Medical School (2025)
What You’ll Learn.
The evidence base
A 2025 review of 100+ studies found mobile healthcare improves access, identifies unmet needs, and reduces barriers across several service lines.
Three access problems
Distance, availability, and trust. The most effective mobile programs are designed around one or more of these barriers.
Program design standards
Trusted sites, transdisciplinary care teams, clinical records, referral closure, payment models, and outcome measurement.
Seven launch decisions
From defining the problem to choosing service lines, selecting sites, building care teams, and establishing payment models.
Financing & policy
How value-based payment models create sustainable funding for mobile care, and the policy priorities that make it easier or harder.
The patient view
What patients should experience: familiar sites, predictable schedules, clear costs, preferred language, and a path to the next step.
The Evidence Is Strong.
Geospatial targeting increased the share of patients from the most vulnerable communities from 25% to 41%.
Twiner et al., 2024
87% of patients who received buprenorphine said they would not have started treatment that day without the van.
Shah et al., 2026
Mobile dental delivery in Ohio significantly increased preventive care and reduced invasive treatments among school-age children.
Partido et al., 2021
A useful mobile healthcare strategy funds the people, workflows, data systems, and follow-up that turn a mobile encounter into care.
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8 pages covering evidence, program design, use cases, financing, policy, and a step-by-step launch framework.