A Mobile Health Locator App to Help Patients Access More Services
Health systems in regions across the country deploy mobile health units so they can reach more patients – at schools, near workplaces, in areas with little regular access to care. But there’s little coordination among the units and their sponsoring organizations, meaning the care isn’t as efficient and as effective as it could be.
In what may be a first in the United States, a group of ten different, sometimes competing, organizations in central Ohio have come together to coordinate and support these mobile units, magnifying the efforts of their mobile health strategies. Called the Central Ohio Mobile Consortium, the group has also released a Mobile Health Locator app to enable patients to find care easier.
“When we first informally came together during the pandemic, we realized we had a lot in common, including challenges we faced as mobile care providers,” says Lauren Van Petten, PhD, mobile consortium project manager and a School Health Services Manager at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. “We also felt that we could reach more people working together. We were really missing an opportunity.”
Nationwide Children’s helped drive the collaboration – as a pediatric specialty provider, the hospital was already a natural partner with some of the more adult-focused organizations. Dr. Van Petten said it was valuable for the consortium to understand what its individual members needed in one-on-one meetings, and then bring those understandings to the larger group.
The Central Ohio Mobile Consortium represents the area’s four major hospital systems – Nationwide Children’s, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, OhioHealth and Mount Carmel – along with the Columbus Division of Fire, Columbus Public Health, Franklin County Public Health, Equitas Health, Central Outreach Wellness Center and The Breathing Association. Funding for the consortium and its recently launched app has come from CareSource and Franklin County Public Health.
The app helps users track as many as 20 mobile health care units in real time, offering varied types of care in central Ohio including checkups, sick visits, vaccinations, blood work, sports physicals, primary care mental health services, maternal prenatal care, referrals to specialists and urgent care services.
App users can search and filter by date, location, health service needed and insurance type. The app will also indicate if walk-in appointments are accepted or how to schedule an appointment.
The mobile app does not just encompass the urban and suburban areas around Columbus; increasingly, mobile health units in rural areas can also be found, says Dr. Van Petten.
“One of the things that I think is most important is that we are not siloed,” she says. “We are not in just one area. And in using the app, you’re not just seeing one kind of care. You can find primary care and women’s health care. You can find adult care and pediatric care. No single mobile health unit can do everything, but working together, we can cover more.”
To access the app, visit MobileHealthLocator.com to start using the tool today. To download the app, go to the app store on an Apple or Android device and search “Mobile Health Locator,” then tap download.
Published July 2025
