IJERPH Webinar | Mobile Health Clinics as an Access Strategy
the chair
13th IJERPH Webinar
Mobile Health Clinics as an Access Strategy
We are pleased to present a webinar examining the potential of mobile health clinics as a transformative strategy for improving access to care. Mobile health clinics offer a pragmatic solution to overcoming geographic and systemic barriers, yet the act of bringing care directly to communities does more than address access – it shifts the very paradigm of the patient-provider relationship, reframing how and where health and healing begin. Our speakers bring distinct but complementary perspectives: one is a research professor on health insurance and access to care, who has just completed a comprehensive review of the current mobile clinic research, while the other draws upon four decades of field experience, encompassing both the rich history of early mobile health initiatives and the rise of innovative, technology-enabled models. In addition, as co-founder of the Return-on-Investment Calculator and MobileHealthMap she has helped mobile clinics measure their impact. Together, they will define what “Mobile Health” means, explore its community-driven origins, and discuss both the evidence for its impact and the advances shaping its future. With this webinar and associated Special Issue of the IJERPH journal, we invite you to join the conversation, with the aim of rethinking traditional models of care, deepening our understanding of community-based solutions, and identifying the resources and new perspectives required to optimize the potential of mobile health clinics within the broader continuum of healthcare and public health.
Date: 12 November 2025
Time: 12:00 PM EST | 06:00 PM CET
Webinar ID: 821 2110 7559
Webinar Secretariat: journal.webinar@mdpi.com
Meet Our Speakers
Ms. Maanasa Kona
Center on Health Insurance Reforms, Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, Washington DC, USA;
Maanasa Kona, JD, LLM, is an Associate Research Professor and faculty member at the Center on Health Insurance Reforms (CHIR) at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. Her research focuses on improving the affordability of and access to health care, with particular emphasis on reducing the burden of medical debt, expanding access to primary and behavioral health care, and addressing the drivers of rising health care costs, including harmful provider consolidation. She received her bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, her J.D. from American University Washington College of Law, and her LL.M. in Intellectual Property Law from The George Washington University.
Dr. Nancy Oriol
Office of Medical Education, Harvard Medical School, Boston MA, USA;
Nancy E. Oriol, M.D.is Faculty Associate Dean for Community Engagement in Medical Education, Associate Professor of Anesthesia in the Department of Anesthesia at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Lecturer in Social Medicine in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS). Dr Oriol Graduate from HMS in 1979, completed anesthesia residency at the Beth Israel Hospital and was Director of the Division of Obstetric Anesthesia until 1997. From 1997-2016 she was Dean For Students at HMS. Dr. Oriol is the co-founder of several long-standing social innovations including: the Family Van a mobile clinic, MobileHealthMap a data sharing network of mobile clinics and HMS MEDscience a unique simulation-based science curriculum for high school and college.
Summary
The webinar titled "Mobile Health Clinics as an Access Strategy" was held on November 12th, 2025, by the International Journal for Equity in Health (IJERPH), published by MDPI. Dr. Nancy E Oriol and Ms. Maanasa Kona engaged in a conversation, chaired by Dr. Daniel Palazuelos, exploring how mobile health clinics (MHCs) reduce barriers to care and bring care directly to underserved populations.
MHCs are a vital access strategy, bringing primary, preventive, dental, and specialty care directly to underserved urban, rural, and isolated communities. MHCs improve access by overcoming geographic barriers, addressing transportation issues, providing convenient hours, offering comprehensive services, and reducing costs.
This webinar reviews what is currently known about MHCs and explores what the exciting future of mobile health promises the US healthcare system and beyond. The discussion offered tangible implementation models, such as The Family Van in Boston, and a bird’s-eye view of what the current scholarship tells us about the mobile health movement.
Link to The Family Van:
https://www.familyvan.org/
Link to Maanasa’s scholarship:
https://chir.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/Beyond-the-Clinic-Walls.pdf
Link to the Mobile health map:
https://www.mobilehealthmap.org/
The webinar was hosted via Zoom and required registration to attend. The full recording can be found below. In order to learn about future webinars, you can sign up to our newsletter by clicking “Subscribe” at the top of the page.
Advances and Trends in Mobile Healthcare
Guest Editors: Dr. Nancy Oriol, Dr. Mollie Williams and Dr. Daniel Palazuelos
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2025