Mobile Medical Units Headed to Rural Walton County Thanks to $46 Million Grant
Fifteen healthcare organizations will bring mobile clinics to rural Walton County under a $46.4 million federal grant, aiming to cut the hour-plus drives residents make to see a doctor.
Rural Walton County residents have long driven an hour or more to reach a doctor’s office. That burden is now the target of a five-year, $46.4 million federal award through Florida’s Rural Health Transformation Program, announced Friday morning in DeFuniak Springs by representatives of more than a dozen healthcare organizations.
The money comes from the federal government, administered by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, and will fund a fleet of mobile units covering everything from primary care to dental services — including a mobile stroke bus. Statewide, the program distributed nearly $188 million across more than 80 awards serving 31 rural counties, with the Northwest Region landing 35 awardees and $81 million.
“It’s not about buying a new bus or putting in a new building or facility, it’s really about changing the lives of those in rural areas that may sometimes not have the access to healthcare that they need,” Florida State Rep. Shane Abbott of Walton County said at the announcement.
The 15-partner Northwest Florida collaborative includes names Freeport residents know well: Walton County Fire Rescue, which answers the county’s EMS calls, is a partner alongside the Florida Department of Health-Walton and Walton Community Health Center and Doctors Medical Center Walton County. Point Washington Medical Clinic, Ascension Sacred Heart, Lakeview Center, and the Northwest Florida Health Council — which leads operational administration — round out a list serving the ten westernmost Florida counties.
For Freeport-area families in the county’s rural stretches, the practical promise is care delivered where people already are. Point Washington Medical Clinic plans to add two additional mobile units with the funding. “With this grant, we’ll be able to add to that mobile unit, have two additional where we will be able to bring all of the services aside from dentistry that we have at our permanent facility to our patients that we’re seeing remotely,” Hillary Glenn, the clinic’s executive director, told WJHG.
The award builds on earlier Rural Health Transformation funding already flowing into the region. Ascension Sacred Heart received $2.8 million in August to put a mobile stroke unit on Panhandle roads — a bus equipped with a CT scanner, clot-busting medications, and a telehealth link to hospital stroke specialists — along with portable diagnostic technology such as ultrasound machines for use in northern rural Walton County.
Details on specific mobile clinic routes and stop schedules in Walton County have not yet been announced. The Northwest Florida Health Council, which operates the Wellness on Wheels mobile clinic already serving the county, is leading operational administration of the new program.
Originally reported by WJHG Newschannel 7 and MyPanhandle (WMBB).
Image: WJHG Newschannel 7.
