Texas Children’s Mobile Clinics are now equipped with EPIC, allowing medical staff to offer a more thorough continuum of care.
“We aim to find medical homes for all our families,” said Dr. Sanghamitra Misra, medical director of the Texas Children’s Mobile Clinic Program. “Now that we are entering our clinic notes into EPIC, any practitioner within the Texas Children’s system can read our notes to understand a patient’s history and diagnoses. This provides continuity of care that we have never had before.”
As a result, follow-up care, even if it takes place in the emergency room, can be more coordinated. With a simple keyboard stroke, medical staff organization-wide can access information about patients treated at the mobile clinics. In turn, staff at the mobile clinics can track their patients’ follow-up care.
“We often care for children on the mobile clinics who suffer from chronic illnesses and need follow-up care,” Misra said. “With Epic, we can more easily get them into a medical home and, if needed, a referral to a Texas Children’s specialist.
Texas Children’s Pediatric President Kay Tittle said the move to putting the mobile clinics on EPIC is a positive one that will provide better documentation of the patients seen through the Mobile Clinic Program.
“Our patients will benefit from it and so will our medical staff,” Tittle said. “It’s a win-win for everyone involved.”
The Texas Children’s Mobile Clinic Program is composed of two clinics: The Superkids Mobile Clinic and the Ronald McDonald Care Mobile. The mission of the program is to provide underserved children in the Houston area with comprehensive health care and preventive education.
During the school year, the Super Kids Mobile Clinic travels primarily to Houston Independent School District schools, community centers and churches in the Southwest Gulfton area. The Ronald McDonald Care Mobile travels primarily to HISD schools, community centers and churches in the Southeast Hobby area.
The clinic provides free vaccinations to those who qualify for the Texas Vaccines for Children program and also provides free well child visits, sick visits and hearing or vision screenings for uninsured children in the Houston area. In addition, both mobile clinics have pharmacies that are stocked with common medications. The providers can perform common laboratory tests. Lastly, providers and staff members educate all patients coming through the clinic about the different insurance options available to them.
In the summer, the clinics travel throughout the Houston area and sometimes even further to provide free vaccines to children before the school year starts.