VCOM 2023 Annual Report

Increasing Access to Primary Care to Decrease Health Inequity

M ost counties in South Carolina are considered medically underserved, which means finding a doctor who is taking new patients can be next to impossible and existing patients often wait months to get an appointment. Many residents living in rural, medically underserved and disadvantaged communities face long wait periods for diagnosis and treatment, which ultimately means poor health outcomes, increase in chronic diseases and a lower quality of life. The majority of South Carolinians live in areas where there are more than 5,000 citizens per one physician. Fourteen of our 46 counties have no access to OB-GYN doctors, which means nine out of every 1,000 babies will die before their first birthday.

VCOM-Carolinas is fiercely dedicated to improving access to healthcare and increasing the number of primary care physicians who practice across South Carolina to combat the ever-growing healthcare disparity that is plaguing the state. By providing patient centered medicine through medical outreach activities to those who need it the most and by graduating 162 physicians each year, the Spartanburg-based medical school is making a significant impact. The South Carolina Center for Rural and Primary Healthcare recognized VCOM Carolinas efforts and recently awarded it a $419,716 grant to fund a program entitled, “Addressing Health Inequity in South Carolina by Increasing Access to Primary Care.” The grant will enable the College to: • Employ the VCOM-Carolinas mobile unit to improve access to preventive medicine services and primary care to those who need it the most. • Utilize VCOM-Carolinas faculty and medical students to implement a primary care mobile clinic once a week to provide preventive services, public health education, and facilitate the establishment of a medical home among rural and underserved patients. • Offer free screenings such as blood pressure, glucose and sexually transmitted disease screenings at preventive medicine community outreach events and rural health immersion programs in rural and medically underserved communities across the state. These efforts help ease healthcare disparities, including those related to rural locations, minority populations, poverty status and lack of access to primary care, which benefit both the patients and rural providers in those areas.

“With a focus on educating patients on disease prevention, health literacy, patient compliance, disease management and patient-physician communication, we can empower patients with knowledge, awareness and confidence to effectively manage their disease processes.”

—Matthew Cannon, DO

“Disparities in healthcare pose a moral and ethical dilemma for our society and result in missed diagnoses and poor management of chronic conditions that often translate into avoidable, higher costs for healthcare systems,” said Dr. Matthew Cannon, dean of VCOM-Carolinas. “The shocking differences in healthcare continue to result in individuals from these groups suffering disproportionately, and often unnecessarily, from treatable, curable or preventable diseases.”

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