Where the Rubber Meets the Remedies

By Morgan Lord
July 8, 2025 | VOLUME 3, ISSUE 2

In urban Chicago, a striking contrast in health care can exist between neighborhoods that are mere miles from one another.

In 1998, four local physicians teamed up to counteract the health disparities in certain areas of the city, which at the time had the highest asthma mortality rates in the country.

There was a disinvestment in certain neighborhoods that restricted access to care across the board, particularly for chronic conditions, said Matt Siemer, Executive Director of Mobile Care Chicago (MCC). 

“The more our founders understood that this crisis wasn't just coming from one or even a couple neighborhoods but was spread across the south and west sides of the city, the more a mobile clinic became vital,” Siemer said.

The first Asthma Van, an RV transformed into a clinic on wheels, hit the road in 1999, providing care for kids in Chicago neighborhoods with high asthma rates.

With the early support of a CHEST grant in 2000, MCC was able to deliver free medical and preventative care to those without access in their own communities.

“CHEST helped to launch us into the mobile care we are today,” Siemer said.

Now, two decades later, MCC has a fleet of six mobile units, which includes three asthma and allergy mobile clinics, plus vans for dental, vision, opioid recovery, and food allergies.

Each van, uniquely painted by local artists, is equipped with a mobile unit—a nurse practitioner or medical doctor, a nurse, a medical assistant, and a clinical technician who also serves as the driver—with the goal of diagnosing, educating, and providing ongoing care for kids.

When kids are sick or struggling to breathe at night, worried parents and the entire household don’t get much sleep, said Melinda Fitzgerald, PNP, MCC’s Clinical Compliance Lead. The child’s health, the parents’ work life, and the student’s school attendance are all affected, which then impacts the community.

To keep care convenient for working parents, MCC partners with 60 Chicago City and 25 Lake County schools, giving greater access to interface with health professionals like school nurses, Siemer said. Appointments are year-round and open to all kids, even if they do not attend the school where the Asthma Van is visiting.

At every Asthma Van appointment, a team member checks the patient’s vitals and conducts an asthma diagnostic test, a spirometry test, and a fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) test, if necessary. In another room, a team member reviews the patient’s history with the parent. Once all the information is gathered, a treatment plan is devised. The care team works with the parents, the child, and the school to make sure everyone is educated about the child’s condition(s) and medication(s).

A second Community Impact Grant from CHEST in 2018 helped expand this program to explore social determinants of health, like environmental factors, substandard housing, air quality, and mental health, and their correlation to patient care.

“Every time that we've had a significant new expansion or innovation, CHEST is always there alongside it,” Siemer said.

And patients stick around, too. The most recent Community Impact Grant that MCC received from CHEST in 2024 enhanced the organization’s ability to serve the young adult population (aged 16+) who have been coming to the Asthma Van since they were kids.

“Now 10% of our patient population fits the young adult category, and, next year, it's going to be 12%,” Siemer said. “As our Asthma Van patients age, they turn from children to young adults to adults who have a new perception of what health care can be—an alternative to institutional medicine.”

Managing a chronic disease, like asthma, isn’t solitary—it’s community-minded, he added. These patients have grown up using mobile health care; they spread the word to their neighbors, and now they bring their own kids for mobile care.