Interstate Well being breaks floor on first driver-focused clinic

On a current go to to the Biltmore property in Asheville, North Carolina, a retired trucker and present trolley driver advised Jeff Seraphine he remembered holing up in his truck for 3 days with out medication ready out the flu till he had sufficient energy to get again on the highway as a result of he didn’t have an accessible place to get healthcare.

Accessible healthcare is a problem all truck drivers face as they stay their nomad existence, making them one of many unhealthiest populations within the U.S. Nashville-based Interstate Well being Methods (IHS) is on a quest to eradicate that subject.

“(There are) plenty of points however the main drawback going through that group is simply lack of entry,” stated Seraphine, CEO of IHS. “You may have lots of people that, as soon as they get behind the wheel of a big truck, simply lose entry to well being care. They spend quite a lot of their days of their truck, and quite a lot of these individuals do not receives a commission until they hold that truck on the highway.”

IHS not too long ago broke floor on a well being clinic close to the Port Gas Heart in Port Wentworth, Georgia, and the Operational Well being Heart in Cookeville, Tennessee, not too long ago joined IHS. Each places are strategically located in areas frequented by business drivers.

Seraphine stated the corporate, which launched in November final yr with a purpose to create a dynamic community of main care, pressing care and telemedicine providers alongside the nation’s interstate freeway system to make healthcare extra accessible to the transportation business, plans to open 300 places throughout the U.S. over the subsequent six years. With its preliminary funding in place, IHS will start opening 60 clinics over the subsequent two years.

Seraphine stated a number of teams have tried to create higher entry to healthcare for drivers however weren’t profitable. He stated the reply is location.

“The place do truck drivers spend quite a lot of time? The place do they get off the highway and congregate. … It is often half-hour or 45 minutes exterior of the massive cities … It is not simple to maneuver and discover locations inside the larger metropolis so they have a tendency to congregate exterior in these smaller cities,” he stated.

However the success issue isn’t just in finding clinics in areas that obtain heavy truck driver site visitors, he stated; it’s about discovering places that even have a medically underserved native inhabitants.

“As a way to construct issues that may essentially change healthcare entry for drivers, you actually need to broaden the inhabitants that you simply serve and tackle the wants of a number of populations in these areas,” Seraphine added.

Every location might be located close by strategically chosen truck stops and journey facilities to permit drivers entry to parking, which is a main issue of accessibility. Seraphine stated IHS selected to not find inside truckstops as a result of that will deter the general public from accessing the clinic, which is essential to IHS’s success. He stated IHS will begin with a regional focus first – inside 500 miles of Nashville – after which construct out nationwide.

IHS will initially provide a client going through web site that shares places and affords scheduling however plans to ultimately provide an app that helps drivers plan for appointments based mostly on their route.

Areas will initially provide main and pressing care providers for business drivers and the neighborhood, in addition to specialised physicals required by the Division of Transportation for business truck drivers, drug screens and different pre-employment medical care and x-ray providers. Seraphine stated the purpose is to ultimately provide extra providers like laboratory, pharmacy and in-cab sleep research.

“Due to the driving force inhabitants and lack of accessibility up to now, we understand that we’re coping with a gaggle that their bodily that they’re getting both yearly or each different yr often is the solely time a few of them are seeing a health care provider,” Seraphine stated. “We wish to guarantee that with the care we’re giving them we will present continuity of comply with as much as that care if they’ve co-morbid situations.”

Seraphine stated IHS may be very know-how targeted and plans so as to add in distant affected person monitoring, ultimately incorporating wearables, to assist handle a few of these situations.

IHS has partnered with cloud-based know-how supplier CareCloud to supply a single medical file throughout all IHS places so drivers don’t must fill out paperwork at every go to as in the event that they’re a brand new affected person. He stated IHS additionally plans to companion with trucking corporations to combine with their platforms to create information sharing alternatives to reinforce continuity of care and affected person comfort in addition to provide real-time telemedicine and a unified prescription service community.

“We do not need that to be a barrier … in order we scale, the corporate can even work actually arduous to carry healthcare know-how options which are related to this group of individuals – issues that take care of situations which are quite common amongst truck drivers,” Seraphine stated. “We wish to be a spot to introduce that know-how and make it accessible to them as a substitute of them being the final those who these issues can be found to.”