PA Foundation Grant Propels Community Project to Success

Touro Mobile HealthCare Clinic Able to Grow With More Funds

 December 8, 2017

 By Abby Boshart

Since 2014, the Touro Mobile HealthCare Clinic has been addressing the critical healthcare needs of Las Vegas Valley’s homeless populations. Serving as an extension of the Touro Medical Center, university faculty supervise students as they provide wellness services, vaccinations, and diagnosis and treatment of common family diseases and minor wounds.

The clinic was not always well-equipped to offer these services. When they first started to work in the community, students and faculty realized they did not have the resources to treat the scope and severity of the conditions they found among the homeless. In 2015, they turned to the PA Foundation, which awarded them a $10,000 grant to fund the purchase of the equipment and supplies.

The PA Foundation awarded one of its first IMPACT Grants to PA student Tameem H. Sabry from Touro University Nevada for the Touro Mobile HealthCare Clinic. As this project has grown, it highlights how the PA Foundation’s support of community-focused projects can propel initiatives to success.

The Foundation’s IMPACT Grant allowed the clinic to treat the chronic and complex needs of its patients. The Touro PA Program said the grant was instrumental in securing future funding that helped them open a second mobile clinic and expand their patient network.

Over the past two years, The Touro Mobile HealthCare Clinic has received multiple grants, including a $1 million federal grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) in September 2017. The HRSA grant will fund the development of research initiatives to improve access to healthcare for disadvantaged populations across the country.

“Community outreach is the basis of our PA program, and this will allow us to improve upon all of our existing partnerships,” said PA Program faculty member Aimme Duford, who is also a 2007 graduate of the Touro program.

Touro was one of only three national PA programs to win the faculty development grant. PA Program Director Dr. Phil Tobin believes that their strong community outreach was a deciding factor. The clinic has a robust presence in the Las Vega Valley community and has partnerships with several local nonprofits.

Dr. Tobin believes that the Touro University PA Program can have an even broader impact.

“Every PA program could have a mobile clinic. If we could make that happen, we could change healthcare for disadvantaged people across the country.”

The PA Foundation IMPACT Grant Program seeks to support patient-focused, community-based health projects that demonstrate an impact on patient health outcomes. Support projects like the Touro Mobile HealthCare Center through a donation to the PA Foundation.

Abby Boshart is the Communications Coordinator at AAPA. Email her at [email protected].