4-2 Select a Capital Budget Item
Kyndall Tucker
Southern New Hampshire University
Professor David Phillips
IHP-450-10882-M01 Healthcare Mgmt and Finance
September 29, 2024
4-2 Select a Capital Budget Item
My capital budget proposal for Venice Family Clinic would be to propose transit vans to
assist patients in reaching their appointments. “Transportation is a significant social determinant
of health in rural communities. The availability of reliable transportation impacts a person’s
ability to access appropriate and well-coordinated healthcare, purchase nutritious food and
otherwise for themselves” (Rural Health Information Hub, 2010). Those people who need
transportation services include the elderly, low-income individuals, people with disabilities and
veterans. When trying to access healthcare rural residents experience greater travel burdens.
Unfortunately, without reliable transportation patients may experience longer travel distances,
spend more money to travel to their appointments or even get injured or hurt while traveling.
This in turn causing patients to be late or even risk not been seen at all for their appointment.
This is not good for the patient as it could cause reduced preventive care, poor treatment
outcomes and even greater chance for disease.
The lack of reliable and accessible transportation for patients could cause low healthcare
services, delayed or missed appointments, disruptions in ongoing treatments and increased poor
healthcare outcomes. “7% of rural adults aged 18 to 64 missed a healthcare appointment within a
12-month timeframe due to transportation difficulties, as opposed to 5% of urban adults”.
Providing transportation for patient’s to make their appointments could also be cost-effective and
improve quality of care. Furthermore, with patients having a reliable transportation service at
hand this will reduce hospitalizations and nursing home stays. Elderly patients with disabilities
or chronic healthcare problems with no transportation face the risk of their health, life and safety
being impacted.
In an effort to support this proposal I would advise hiring a mobility manager to be in
charge of scheduling routes and dispatches. I would also recommend that Venice Family Clinic
update their website to include that they provide transportation service to their patients as well as
include contact information. Implementing systematic reminder calls the day before a patient’s
appointment as well as same day notifications to notify patients when the vehicle is near is
helpful. Also setting specific schedules and route times will be helpful as well. I would also
recommend that the clinic form partnerships with different transit service and insurers.
