With Dublin’s wealth of amenities, great schools and kind neighbors, it’s no surprise that it’s become home to a growing immigrant population. And with that means a unique patient population in need of attentive health care.
To combat the health disparities between different groups within the Dublin community, OhioHealth and Ohio State Outpatient Care Dublin created multiple avenues for children and adults to get the treatment they need.
In 2020, OhioHealth’s family medicine department and the Dublin Methodist Hospital partnered with Davis Middle and Hopewell Elementary Schools, to provide adequate health care to children.
These schools were chosen, according to OhioHealth philanthropy advisor Brianne McFarland, because a higher number of students there take part in the free or reduced lunch program, and these schools had higher rates of vaccine non-compliance than other area schools.
Today, the children at those schools can receive vaccinations, sports physicals and wellness checks with the approval of a parent or guardian. For 2023, OhioHealth expects a 15-20 percent increase, or 170-180, in vaccinations and an additional 10 percent increase, or 60-70, in well-visits.
Dr. Amir Dada is a resident physician for Dublin Methodist Family Medicine Program and a Dublin native. Dada says he is heavily involved in this partnership alongside Dr. Rebecca Grant, an assistant program director for Dublin Methodist Family Medicine Program at OhioHealth, as they go to the schools often to help provide health care.
“I have a very sincere passion for helping the community I come from and treating patients from underserved backgrounds,” Dada says. “When I look at the students we’re providing services for, many of their parents don’t speak English since they’ve come from immigrant backgrounds, and I can relate since my parents are refugees from Afghanistan.”
Dan Like, chief administrative officer for ambulatory services at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, also shares a passion for helping the Dublin community.
Growing up in Dublin for most of his life and being an OSU alum, Like knows exactly what Dublin needs regarding health care.
According to Like, one of the focuses for Ohio State Outpatient Care Dublin is to “improve
access to care and make care more convenient for our patients and prospective patients.” They do this by offering a wide array of medical services, Like says, including primary care, physical therapy, outpatient surgery and procedures, and walk-in care, allowing patients to get emergency service assistance with lower costs.
“One of the opportunities the medical center has is to improve access to care and make care more convenient for our patients and prospective patients,” Like says. “We've found that when we've opened these outpatient care centers, it's not just the local residents of the city of Dublin, but people will travel from afar to receive Ohio State care.”
Along with the university’s cost-effective treatments, Ohio State has a partnership with Lyft, which uses a development account to pay for transportation for individuals that have difficulty getting to and from their appointment and a collaboration with COTA, the Central Ohio Transit Authority.
“When we look at our ambulatory expansion, we try to partner with COTA and look at where the bus lines are to see where public transportation is, how proximal it is to our outpatient care facilities,” Like says. “And if there isn't a bus line close by, how can we partner with COTA to see if one could be added?”
Ohio State Outpatient Care Dublin has another program called Community Care Coach. It provides primary care, vaccinations, and women’s health services with two exam rooms, a lab and a registration area.
Launched in February 2022, it was quickly shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it is now in service in the Columbus and Dublin area.
“We partner with many different churches and community groups around the city of Columbus and Dublin in order to bring service to those communities,” Like says.
OhioHealth has a similar program known as Wellness on Wheels, or WOW, which has been in place since 2017. This project has brought mobile units to different communities to provide health care to those in need.
At first, WOW only focused on mammograms; however, after the need for more care, OhioHealth began providing additional services like annual physicals and wellness exams, diabetes treatment, hypertension treatment, and ultrasounds.
For McFarland, these programs are essential to the community, and their accessibility needs to be more known.
“Providing the education of what options are available for them is essential in promoting health care,” she says. “What often happens is individuals think a treatment is not there, but they simply don’t know about it.”
Despite all of the services OhioHealth offers, Grant believes the immigrant population in Dublin needs more health assistance and information about what’s available to them.
“There is a larger immigrant population sometimes language is a big barrier, alongside not having insurance,” Grant says. “Health care is only one piece of the disparity; the other is
education. … Education is the great equalizer, and allowing students not to miss school and get convenient health care sets them up for a better future.”
Like also believes many individuals need to focus on Dublin residents' diversity and socioeconomic status.
“I think people who aren’t in Dublin don’t realize the diversity and socioeconomic status of residents of Dublin,” Like says. “I’m always thinking about how we can continue to provide more accessible services to the residents of those areas. As a community and as partners, we need to work together to ensure that we're just not bringing all of our services to the northwest side.”
Mariah Muhammad is a contributing writer at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.