A Bus with a Purpose: BayCare’s Mobile Medical Clinic celebrates 20 years of serving area children and families

In the early 2000s, there was a national push to increase immunization rates for children. In 2004 in Tampa, Florida, St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital responded to the call by putting together the Mobile Medical Clinic (MMC)—a bus with a registered nurse, a nurse practitioner and a program coordinator that drove around to underserved areas. That summer, the program vaccinated 34 children.

Fast-forward to August 2024, and the 40-foot MMC now has a staff of 15, including rotations of pediatric residents, and a robust list of social services that they can either provide or refer a family to. The MMC sees patients at seven Children’s Board Family Resource Center locations and three additional partner locations. Now, they serve close to 2,000 children annually.

Call it the “BayCare Effect.”

Says Jeannette Burgos, BayCare Kids Mobile Medical Clinic Outreach Coordinator: “One family comes to one of our clinics and shares word of mouth. And then we’re helping the next family. And we’re providing not just pediatric health services, but support for the whole family.”

Children who can be treated at the MMC must meet the following criteria: They must be 18 or younger and either have no insurance, be enrolled in Medicaid, or be Alaskan natives or American Indians.

Kids have access to well child exams and school physicals, immunizations and immunization record checks, and hearing, developmental and vision screening. (Sports physicals are not provided.) Sick children can get sick care at specific sites that partner with the MMC, including Metropolitan Ministries in Tampa and San Jose Mission in Dover.

“MMC is often a family’s first experience with the health care system in the United States or in Florida,” says Burgos.

That’s why in addition to caring for sick and well children, the staff tries to assist the family in a holistic way. A patient care coordinator helps families with health and safety education, health insurance application assistance and medical care coordination.

Burgos says they ask, “What other facets of a person’s life can affect either a poor health outcome or a positive health outcome?” They ask families of the children that the MMC serves whether they have housing needs, whether they are covered by insurance or whether they are suffering from food insecurity. “If a parent says yes, we try and help,” she says.

A family struggling to feed themselves are referred to Feeding Tampa Bay, and the MMC team also use the Find Help software platform to locate resources and make referrals. Families can go to Children’s Board centers to get baby clothes and the MMC can help provide babyproofing products.

And what if a well or sick-care visit turns up a problem with a child’s health that needs further treatment? The patient care coordinator helps by assisting families through the next steps.

“What if a child needs hearing aids? Has a cardiac issue? Ninety percent of our patients don’t qualify for health insurance,” Burgos explains. In these cases, the patient care coordinator can help find specialists and negotiate pro-bono treatments, or direct families to organizations like the Family Health Care Foundation or BayCare Financial Assistance to sign up for insurance.

Looking forward, the MMC is looking to add a vehicle and expand into more counties. They want to partner with more organizations and locations and reach and help even more children, and through them, their families.

“The most rewarding part of what we do is that we get to see these children grow up,” Burgos says. “Especially when there’s one family that’s been with you … the baby started with us, and now she’s in preschool! They say thank you; they give us a hug. It’s most meaningful to know that parents do trust us.”

The MMC travels to many areas of Hillsborough County, including all seven of the Children’s Board Family Resource Centers, Metropolitan Ministries Family Support Center, and the San José Mission and La Esperanza Clinic, both run by Catholic Charities. For more information, call the BayCare Kids Mobile Medical Clinic at (813) 554-7242.

*Presented by BayCare | Originally published in the August 2024 issue of Tampa Bay Parenting Magazine.