A Mobile Internal Medicine Clinic

The Denver Veterans Administration Medical Center (DVAMC) established a mobile internal medicine clinic (MediVAn) to provide access to primary care for veterans living more than fifty miles from the center and to study the costs of such an outreach program. A fully equipped van staffed by an internist visited four Colorado cities weekly for scheduled appointments. In the first two years of operation there were 4, 655 visits by 766 veterans with a mean age of 56 years, with 3. 9 diagnoses, and receiving 3. 0 medicines. The cost per MediVAn visit was 68, compared with 67 per outpatient visit at DVAMC. We conclude that a mobile medical clinic is a convenient method of delivering primary care over distances and is comparable in cost to outpatient hospital visits.