Chronic diseases impact individuals and the entire community. When a town’s people are healthy, everything else becomes healthy. This guide shares the ways that Mobile Integrated Healthcare enhances community health with chronic disease management programs.
When chronic diseases aren’t managed, the body slowly begins to fall apart. Mobile Integrated Healthcare programs improve chronic disease management by providing follow-up visits, reducing the burden of travel, delivering more specific care, and treating their patients more holistically.
Below, you’ll learn the many ways an MIH program can positively impact people struggling with chronic diseases.

Can Mobile Integrated Healthcare Teams Help Chronic Disease Management Programs?
There is little more debilitating to a person than an unmanaged chronic disease. Managing a chronic disease is complicated, even for those with many resources and a strong social network. Imagine the people who have nothing.
Unmanaged chronic diseases don’t just impact the individual. They also affect the entire community. How? When the ambulances are all tied up on repeat patients, the emergency departments and hospitals are full, and the price of care is increasing due to a lack of preventative medicine, we end up with many people who need care but don’t get it.
Managing chronic diseases is a fundamental aspect of healthcare, but it’s a tricky problem, especially when discussing underserved populations. Thankfully, multiple tiers of healthcare—including MIH—are working to correct this issue.
Here is a list of ways that MIH can improve chronic disease management:
- MIH Allows Frequent Follow-up for People with Chronic Diseases
- Mobile Integrated Health Can Reduce the Travel Burden of Chronic Disease Management
- Mobile Integrated Healthcare-Community Paramedics Are Trained in Chronic Diseases
- Patient Prevention and Health Maintenance to Reduce Chronic Disease Severity
- Mobile Integrated Healthcare Seeks to Combine Mental and Physical Healthcare (Holistic Care)
- MIH Teams Organize Advanced In-Home Care for Chronic Disease Patients
Let’s talk about these.
MIH Allows Frequent Follow-up for People with Chronic Diseases
Chronic diseases can often flare up after an emergency event. For example, a person who recently had a heart catheterization can have some pain in the weeks after the procedure. If a community paramedic responds and checks on the patient after a health event, they can help mitigate unwanted symptoms.
Sometimes, the community paramedic will have scheduled visits with someone struggling with a chronic disease. Diabetes is a good example. There are many people who struggle to regulate their blood sugar and those living in at-risk situations who have a tough time.
Mobile integrated health teams can regularly check in on someone with diabetes to answer questions, ensure that their vital signs are stable, and help them remain compliant with their medications.
The medics can also assess these patients, catching minor flare-ups before they become much more severe. This preventative step is often the key to preventing a minor issue from becoming an emergency.
Remaining connected to the health system is important for those struggling with chronic health conditions, and distance plays a big role in this.
Mobile Integrated Health Can Reduce the Travel Burden of Chronic Disease Management
People who have chronic diseases often need to attend appointments. The problems begin when this person lives in a rural area or an underserved community. In these cases, the person may have to drive up to an hour to receive the care they need. This is a lot to ask.
Pair the distance with the fact that many people with chronic diseases also suffer from mobility issues, and you have a system where those with the worst conditions are sometimes receiving the least care.
Mobile Integrated Healthcare seeks to solve this problem. The reason the word Mobile is in the name is that community paramedics can visit patients in their homes, effectively reducing the need for travel. From their homes, the paramedics can perform procedures, set up video calls with a physician, check on medications, and refer the patient for transport to a facility if needed.
People like staying in their own homes. They feel respected and are more likely to follow up with care if they know that the resources will be coming to them. Now, let’s discuss another essential thing to understand about MIH teams and community paramedics.
Mobile Integrated Healthcare-Community Paramedics Are Trained in Chronic Diseases
Paramedics are specialists in emergency care. Those who have dedicated themselves to their training have many skills to save lives in dangerous situations. However, they don’t necessarily have specific training in certain long-term diseases and how to administer long-term care.
The good news? Paramedics are highly adaptable. Community Paramedics receive extra training to ensure they fully understand how to engage with various chronic diseases. They also work closely with physicians when administering care, ensuring that everyone is dialed into the patient’s health.
Patient Prevention and Health Maintenance to Reduce Chronic Disease Severity
When someone is diagnosed with a chronic disease, they are often given some health plan to help them cope and, in some cases, recover. The problem? It isn’t easy to follow a careful plan, so we have people like personal trainers to help people stay on track with fitness routines.
Mobile Integrated Health Community Paramedics might be considered the “personal trainer” of healthcare. They go to the patient’s home and help them follow up on the things they need to stay healthy and avoid acute illness.
Community paramedics will help ensure the environment is conducive to healing, watching out for tripping hazards and secondary pollutants and making sure patients can easily access and track their medications. Mobile Integrated Health teams will regularly check in on people in the program, giving those enrolled something to aim for and someone to keep them on the right path.
As you’ll see, community paramedics also seek to treat the person’s entire health picture, making sure that they have access to physical, mental, and spiritual care. Let’s talk a little more about this holistic approach.
Mobile Integrated Healthcare Seeks to Combine Mental and Physical Healthcare (Holistic Care)
We all know the experience: We go to some form of healthcare clinic and feel like we’re treated like a number rather than a human being. Of course, there are a lot of excuses: “We’re so busy! We don’t have time to be more personable!” or “We don’t have the funding for better staff!”
These claims are all understandable to a point, but what people fail to understand is that treating people like numbers is not an effective method of caring for them. In other words, they may say they’re “just too busy” to treat people with more kindness, but their lack of empathy leads to poor care, which in turn leads to more return patients, which in turn leads to them being even more busy. See the faulty reasoning there?
Mobile Integrated Healthcare sees the faulty reasoning. As a result, they’ve moved toward trying to treat people like people, not numbers. Not just because this is the right thing to do but also because it leads to better care and solves the very problems we’re all working to overcome.
When someone has a chronic disease, looking at other causes is essential. For instance, if someone needs to exercise to help combat a chronic illness, they may be less likely to stick with a regular exercise routine if they are struggling with a severe mental condition. To combat this issue, community paramedics try to team up with mental health professionals, ensuring that patients have a wide range of access to help.
Of course, the opposite is also true. Many times, a mental health problem may be caused by a chronic disease. In this way, community paramedics, mental health providers, and the patient’s physician can work together to give the person the best chance to thrive in every aspect of their life.
MIH Teams Organize Advanced In-Home Care for Chronic Disease Patients
Finally, mobile integrated healthcare teams are bringing more advanced care into the patient’s home. Community paramedics are being trained in more advanced procedures, and hospital-at-home programs are even being set up in some areas.
All of these steps give people multiple lines to grab when they’re looking for freedom from the grip of a chronic disease. Alright, now let’s wrap everything up.
Conclusion: The Many Ways MIH Enhances Chronic Disease Management Programs
Chronic diseases affect people, families, and entire communities. For some, healthcare seems to stagnate when they have to battle a long-term condition. Mobile Integrated Healthcare leads the charge when it comes to out-of-hospital chronic disease management.
MIH teams can follow up with patients who have just had a procedure, perform regular checks on those who need to manage a nuance chronic condition and remove the travel barrier for patients who find themselves far from the care they need.
Contact Julota for more information on how its software tools can help you create an effective MIH chronic disease management program.