In addition to their 5 clinics located throughout Detroit, Covenant had also organized a mobile community outreach clinic that primarily served the unsheltered homeless. The clinic was run out of a mini-van, which created a number of challenges. The van itself wasn’t large enough to hold an exam area, meaning all patient interaction was being done on the street. Paperwork became a massive problem as well. Just getting homeless patients to fill out paperwork was challenging enough, and when paperwork was collected it then had to be re-entered in Covenant’s EMR system back at their main office. In order for the mobile unit to be recognized as a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), like their brick and mortar clinics, they needed to make a change.
To remedy these issues, Covenant was able to acquire a large conversion van that could be outfitted with all the necessary equipment to treat patients. What they needed to complete the unit were
medical computers that could function in such a setting. Due to the extremely limited space in the van, they needed to find a computer that could be wall mounted. While the van had generator power, finding a medical computer that ran on its own batteries was also important. For their community outreach, they were looking for a rugged medical tablet that they could take onto the streets that had wireless connectivity to aid in patient registration that could sync up with their EMR system and eliminate double entry processes.