The Clinical Problem Solvers

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CPSolvers: Anti-Racism in Medicine Series

Episode 30 – Mobile Health Clinics and Democratizing Healthcare: Live from the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) Annual Meeting 2026

Show Notes by Alec J. Calac and Ashley Cooper

July 13, 2026

Summary: In this episode, Dr. Shahid Jaffer and Dr. Priya Sarin Gupta join CPSolvers host Ashley Cooper for a live recording of the podcast at the 2026 Society for General Internal Medicine (SGIM) Annual Meeting. This year’s episode, our sixth conducted at SGIM, is focused on democratizing health care by way of mobile health clinics.  During this episode, we speak with two experts: (1) Dr. Priya Sarin Gupta who  is the Senior Medical Director for Clinical Community Programs at Mass General Brigham, Medical Director for Mobile Health Services at the Kraft Center for Community Health, and an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School and (2) Dr. Shahid Jaffer, Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School, Associate Program Director for the University of Minnesota Mobile Health Initiative, and Principal Investigator of the Minnesota Cancer Assessment Mobile Program. This episode is hosted by Ashley Cooper and the show notes for this episode were written by Ashley Cooper and Dr. Alec Calac.

Episode Learning Objectives:

After listening to this episode, learners will be able to…

1. Identify strategies to engage patients in mobile health care settings to promote healthcare accessibility.
2. Explain how mobile health services function as a critical touchpoint for patients and can help facilitate longitudinal care.
3. Contextualize both local and national data which illuminates mobile health programming as an efficacious tool for addressing structural barriers which patients face, reducing healthcare costs, and cultivating patient trust.

Credits:

• Written and produced by: Dr. Alec Calac and Ashley Cooper 
• Host: Ashley Cooper
• Infographic: Ashley Cooper
• Show Notes: Dr. Alec Calac and Ashley Cooper
• Audio Edits: Ashley Cooper 
• Guests: Dr. Shahid Jaffer, MD and Dr. Priya Sarin Gupta, MD, MPH

Guest Biographies:

Dr. Shahid Jaffer is an Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School, board-certified in both Internal Medicine and Addiction Medicine. As Associate Program Director for the University of Minnesota Mobile Health Initiative and Principal Investigator of MCamp (Minnesota Cancer Assessment Mobile Program), he leads a community-centered mobile colorectal cancer screening program that brings evidence-based CRC screening and patient navigation directly to uninsured and underinsured populations within trusted community settings. His clinical work ranges from preventive care and cancer screening to harm reduction and street outreach, serving communities including immigrant populations, migrant and seasonal agricultural workers, unhoused communities, and Indigenous communities in Minnesota and South Dakota. 

Dr. Priya Sarin Gupta serves as the Senior Medical Director for Clinical Community Programs at Mass General Brigham in the Office of the Chief Medical Officer. As the Medical Director for Mobile Health Services and Special Projects at the Kraft Center for Community Health and an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School, she combines her expertise with a passion for innovation and empowering the next generation of leaders working at the cross point of public health and medicine.  She completed a fellowship in Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, a residency in family medicine at Brown University, and received her MPH from Columbia University.

Episode Takeaways and Insights

Guests Journey to Medicine and Commitment to Providing Linguistically and Culturally-Attuned Care

• Dr. Jaffer describes global health work as instrumental to his journey to internal medicine. Informed by his commitment to creating accessible healthcare landscapes for patients, Dr. Jaffer currently serves as Associate Program Director for the University of Minnesota Mobile Health Initiative and Principal Investigator of the Minnesota Cancer Assessment Mobile Program. His mobile colorectal cancer screening  program strives to bring health services directly to communities at little to no cost, decreasing transportational barriers and uplifting patient health.
  
• Dr. Gupta’s path to medicine was shaped by her early travels across the globe which provided her with a profound understanding of the importance of culturally and linguistically-attuned care provision. She now oversees three comprehensive mobile health clinic lines, initially launched in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The mobile clinics which she supervises tailor treatment to promote patient wellbeing across a range of areas including: management of substance use disorders, preventative health and cancer screenings, and cardiometabolic disease. The mobile clinics aim to serve as a touchpoint for patients to equip them with robust care while simultaneously helping patients establish first-time care or reestablish primary care. Routine engagement, rather than one-off events, promote improved health outcomes.

Mobile Health Programming as a Mode of Bolstering Healthcare Accessibility and Addressing Structural Barriers

• Dr. Gupta delineates mobile health programming as a mode of bolstering healthcare accessibility for patients. She notes that across the three Mass General Brigham Community Care vans which she supervises as Medical Director, there have been 50,000 patient encounters in five years. She also emphasizes that through survey analysis, the program has found that the mobile medical vans are very effective in either bridging patients back to primary medical homes if they previously had PCP’s or establishing new care for patients. 
  
• Dr. Jaffer describes mobile health care delivery as a potent way to address structural barriers which patients face. By tailoring care to community needs, Dr. Jaffer’s mobile health programs have been able to both attend to urgent care gaps (such as vision services for patients in Minnesota) and also bridge patients to additional forms of care subsequently.
  
• Dr. Gupta and Jaffer emphasize the importance of cultivating trust with communities when designing and providing mobile health services. In particular, Dr. Jaffer underscores that it is essential for clinicians to only create screening programs once they have discerned a clear and robust pathway for patients to receive follow-up care for such screening results. 
  
• Describing mobile care as particularly attentive to the myriad transportational barriers which patients may face, the guests note the importance of making mobile health van services available to communities at a range of times (evening, weekends) and offering walk-in appointments. 

The Importance of Incorporating Low-Barrier Testing and Patient Navigation Services into Mobile Healthcare Delivery

• Dr. Jaffer notes that in leading the Minnesota Cancer Assessment Mobile Program (MCAMP) he operates under two key pillars: (1) providing low barrier testing and (2) patient navigation services. In line with this, patients receiving services through MCAMP are able to take a non-invasive colorectal cancer screening test (Cologuard) and also work directly with a community health worker who helps patients navigate the screening process. He notes that their program has a kit return rate of 67% which exceeds the average return rate for Federally Qualified Health Centers which usually sit around 30-40% in terms of Cologuard or FIT (Fecal Immunochemical) test return rates.
  

Recommendations for Clinicians Interested in Beginning a Mobile Health Care Service: Mobile Health Toolkit, Motivational Interviewing, Mobile Health Map, and Sustainability

• Dr. Gupta shares a Mobile Health toolkit that she co-created on creating mobile clinics in partnership with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Dr. Jaffer and Gupta also illuminate how clinicians interested in creating mobile health clinics can partner with community-based organizations in order to provide thoughtful and patient-centered care services.  
• Dr. Jaffer describes how he uses motivational interviewing, tailored messaging, and open conversations about healthcare maintenance to help build patient trust and long-term engagement in care.
  
• In response to an audience question, Dr. Jaffer describes how both direct and indirect costs can limit the scale of mobile health services, especially if not under the umbrella of a large health system. However, he offers key strategies that clinicians can use to encourage sustainability of programming: (1) creating partnerships with other clinical and psychosocial services, for instance MCamp partners with University of Minnesota’s  pharmacy department and through that partnership is able to provide medication counseling and (2) creating service lines which directly address community needs and thus have community buy-in. 
  
• In reflecting on sustainability and developing a longitudinal mobile health program, Dr. Gupta encourages clinicians to center grant applications on particular conditions addressed by their service line. She encourages healthcare workers to describe how their programming is moving the needle on health outcomes for particular conditions as opposed to requesting funding for the entire mobile van.
  
• Dr. Jaffer shares that there is robust national evidence that mobile health clinics offer a significant reduction in cost-savings. He also shares that there are national databases, such as Mobile Health Map, to help patients locate and access mobile health services. Mobile Health Map also publishes reports on the impact of mobile health clinics across the U.S.
  
• Dr. Jaffer concludes by affirming that, to him, the practice of medicine is about partnership and shared decision-making. Dr. Gupta ends by  encouraging thought-leaders in medicine to harness innovation and bridge the divide that has historically disenfranchised communities in need of health care.

Disclosures

The hosts and guests report no relevant financial disclosures.

References

1. Gupta, Priya Sarin, Amir M. Mohareb, Christine Valdes, et al. “Expanding COVID-19 Vaccine Access to Underserved Populations through Implementation of Mobile Vaccination Units.” Preventive Medicine 163 (October 2022): 107226. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2022.107226.
2. Gupta, Priya Sarin, Amir M. Mohareb, Christine Valdes, et al. “Mobile Health Services for COVID-19: Counseling, Testing, and Vaccination for Medically Underserved Populations.” American Journal of Public Health 112, no. 11 (2022): 1556–59. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2022.307021.
3. Jaffer S, Austin R, Kirsch JD. Promoting the health of migrant seasonal agricultural workers in rural Minnesota using a whole-person health approach: a pilot project. Front Public Health. 2025;13:1518686. Published 2025 Apr 2. doi:10.3389/fpubh.2025.1518686
4. Karout L, Dhar P, Waldron E, et al. Barriers and Facilitators to Accurate Smoking History and Equitable Lung Cancer Screening Uptake Among Hispanic and Latino Populations. J Am Coll Radiol. 2025;22(12):1451-1460. doi:10.1016/j.jacr.2025.08.010
5. Massachusetts Department of Public Health. “Hosting a Mobile Vaccination Clinic Toolkit.” September 2024. https://www.mass.gov/doc/hosting-a-mobile-vaccination-toolkit/download
6. Harvard Medical School. “Mobile Health Map.” 2026. https://www.mobilehealthmap.org/
7. Tschampl CA, Wicks JJ, Hodgkin D, et al. Multisite Mobile Addiction Services: Four-Year Outcomes. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2026;23(6):756. Published 2026 Jun 4. doi:10.3390/ijerph23060756

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