Wayne Mobile Health Unit Transforms Bringing Health Care to People Where They Live

A program that provided mobile testing sites during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic has revolutionized the way Wayne State University provides health care and information services in the city of Detroit and surrounding regions. Four years ago, when testing sites were rare, the university launched the fledgling program that would grow to become the Wayne Mobile Health Unit to bring desperately needed virus testing to first responders and health care workers to sites throughout Michigan. In partnership with Wayne Health, WSU established a drive-through testing site for police, firefighters, emergency medical services personnel and health care workers in the parking lots of Wayne Health at 400 Mack Ave. in Detroit and at ACCESSS in Dearborn. The program was led by Phillip Levy, M.D., M.P.H. associate vice president for Translational Science at WSU and director of the WMHU program. Lines of vehicles flooded the site. Dr. Levy later took those services on the road, providing testing – and later, when they became available, vaccines – initially at police headquarters and fire stations across Michigan. The furthest trip was to Houghton, Mich., 573 miles from the unit’s Detroit base. To enable the program’s launch, Dr. Levy struck up partnerships with a...