“Knowing” your population: who are we caring for at Tulane University School of Medicine’s student-run free clinics?

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to provide a deeper analysis characterizing the current health status of Tulane University School of Medicine’s student-run free clinic patients. Only one prior study by Rebholz et al. (South Med J 106(3):217–223, https://doi.org/10.1097/SMJ.0b013e318287fe9a , 2013) has explored the demographics in this population. Ultimately, this study will allow for easy interpretation of the demographics of the student clinic system as a whole and for the individual clinics participating in this study. This information will allow clinics to better customize care for their respective populations and ultimately improve health outcomes. Patient demographic data was collected from five preceptor-based clinics from December 2016 to May 2019 and submitted via a REDCap survey. Survey fields included patient age, sex, gender, race, ethnicity, insurance status, chief complaints, past medical history, social history, and medications. Gross data was analyzed in Excel and subsequently stratified by clinic for inter-clinic comparison. A total of 772 patient responses were collected from five different student-run clinics; 56% were male and 44% were female. The three most common reasons for a clinic visit were complaint-free wellness visits (26%), musculoskeletal complaints (16%), and respiratory complaints (11%). The three most common comorbidities included smoking and/or tobacco abuse (28%), psychiatric conditions (19%), and illicit drug abuse (15%). Future applications derived from this study may include redistribution of resources for patient education, social services, medical inventory, and preventative health services based on patient clinical needs.