ZVMS Street Medicine

ZVMS Street Medicine brings together physicians, medical students, community partners, and individuals with lived experience to identify and create effective ways to improve care for people experiencing homelessness.

ZVMS Street Medicine takes a three-pronged approach to addressing health inequities for people facing housing insecurity in Olmsted County, Minnesota: (1) Provide direct care to people in their own environments through street rounds and community clinics; (2) Train the medical community to provide high-quality, compassionate healthcare outside of clinical settings; and (3) Advocate for changes in systems and processes that affect the healthcare that people receive.

In street rounds, a physician and medical student join a county social worker and a colleague with lived expertise to visit people in encampments, under bridges, and on street corners to identify the medical and social services they need. Community clinics begin with concentrated one-day events, such as the foot care clinic we held at The Landing MN day center in December 2022. We then disperse the skills and supplies to smaller drop-in clinics at additional locations, such as the weekly foot soaks a physician and medical student provide at the Dorothy Day Hospitality House overnight shelter. We have also held three eye care clinics, serving over 300 guests. We held our second dermatology clinic in November. We will hold an eye care clinic in January. Social service providers participate in the community clinics to offer information on health insurance and housing. 

Your generous support will allow us to continue to improve access to care through the purchase of supplies and equipment for our community clinics and street rounds.