Unique ‘clinic-in-a-box’ provides healthcare for unhoused in Tampa

Share
Bishop Gregory L. Parkes demos the Tampa Hope Care station // Chris Young, WMNF News, 1/29/25

Listen:

New technology unveiled Wednesday addresses healthcare for the unhoused. 

A  unique “clinic in a box” provides virtual healthcare to the homeless in Tampa. 

The OnMed Care Station is a small booth, slightly larger than an SUV. 

It resembles a small doctor’s office on the inside, with medical tools and a large screen allowing patients to video chat with a doctor.  Patients are connected with a certified nursing assistant, who begins an intake process and then connects them with an OnMed clinician for a live, virtual visit.

Tampa Hope resident Sammie Harris cuts the ribbon on the device // Chris Young, WMNF News, 1/29/2025

Local leaders unveiled the new device at the homeless shelter Tampa Hope – where Sammie Harris has lived since May.  Tampa Hope has roughly 235 residents. 

He became unhoused after having heart surgery. 

“It’s a wonderful machine because you can get to talk to a person on the screen, you get to talk to a person, it’s wonderful because you don’t have to make doctors appointments,” Harris said at the ribbon cutting for the device.

Mayor Jane Castor spoke at the ribbon cutting about how beneficial the machine is to the community.

“People can go in at the beginning of symptoms and get those diagnosed, get those treated so that it doesn’t turn into something that will, God forbid, take their life prematurely,” Castor said.

The project was funded by Tampa General Hospital and The McNamara Foundation.

Leave a Reply

  • (will not be published)

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

You may also like

Black farmers, discrimination and the future

Howard Gunn, an African-American farmer, joins the Forum to discuss...

U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor blasts Trump order to defund PBS & NPR as ‘illegal’ and an ‘overreach’

Listen: Yesterday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to...

The Scoop: Fri. May 2, 2025, Florida and Tampa Bay headlines by WMNF

Round up of WMNF news headlines including Floridian Army veteran...

2025 May 1 Drought Florida via FPREN
99 percent of Florida is in a drought

Most of Florida's weather stations are showing a year-to-date rainfall...

Ways to listen

WMNF is listener-supported. That means we don't advertise like a commercial station, and we're not part of a university.

Ways to support

WMNF volunteers have fun providing a variety of needed services to keep your community radio station alive and kickin'.

Poetry Is
Poetry Is