10 - Pediatric Specialists on Wheels: A Program Evaluation of a School-based Pediatric Specialty Mobile Clinic

Publication Number: 4009.10

Serena Yang, UC Davis Health, Sacramento, CA, United States; Ellie Kim, University of California, Davis, School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA, United States; Sarah C. Haynes, University of California, Davis, School of Medicine, Sacramento, CA, United States; Cruz Rocio Franco, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, CA, United States; Cynthia Reynoso Trujillo, UC Davis MIND Institute, Sacramento, CA, United States; Jocelyne Rodriguez, Folsom Cordova Unified School District, Rancho Cordova, CA, United States; Kerri Kaye, Folsom Cordova Unified School District, Rancho Cordova, CA, United States; Sunil Saini, UC Davis, Sacramento, CA, United States; R. Scott Akins, UC Davis, Sacramento, CA, United States

Background: Education and healthcare partnerships have been shown to have a positive impact on student health and academic outcomes when resources are integrated at schools. UC Davis Health Pediatric Mobile Clinic began a partnership in 2024 with a local school district to provide pediatric specialty consultations. Clinics are held weekly at the same school site, with specialty teams covering 3 focus areas (integrated primary care/mental health, developmental behavioral pediatrics, asthma).

Objective: To describe the utilization of a school-based pediatric specialty mobile clinic in its first year of implementation, including patient demographics, reasons for referral, consultation results, and families' perceptions of the program and its impact on healthcare access, resource linkages, and their child's health.

Design/Methods: We conducted an explanatory sequential mixed methods study. Quantitative data included mobile clinic electronic health records, staff tracking documents, school absence data, and patient experience ratings. To learn more about families' perceptions, we conducted key informant interviews with a sample of caregivers of children seen at the mobile clinic. Interviews were administered in English and Spanish. We analyzed quantitative data using descriptive statistics and analyzed qualitative data using thematic analysis. Four researchers met to generate a codebook based on the first two interviews; subsequently two coders coded each transcript using a combination of a priori and emerging codes. We integrated quantitative and qualitative results using an integrated results matrix.

Results: During the study period, 52 children received services at the school-based pediatric specialty mobile clinic (Table 1). Mobile clinic teams completed general health assessments required for school entry and sports participation, and identified students with neurodevelopmental conditions, mental health concerns, and uncontrolled asthma. Half of the children had more than 1 co-occurring condition (Table 2). The school-specialty clinic partnership facilitated students' connections to school supports, federally qualified health centers, other primary care providers, and community organizations, while identifying additional unmet health needs (Table 3). Families were very pleased overall with their experience (mean rating 4.95 out of 5).

Conclusion(s): Findings underscore the potential of a school-pediatric specialty mobile clinic partnership to bridge specialty care access gaps, while also identifying ongoing social and structural barriers to specialty care for children faced by families in under-resourced communities.

Characteristics of patients who received services at the specialty mobile clinic


Clinical characteristics and services provided through the specialty mobile clinic


Integrated results matrix summarizing key findings