There are times when rural residents need health services but can’t always get to a health care facility. That’s where the OSF OnCall King Care-A-Van can help.

The OSF OnCall King Care-A-Van is a 38-foot mobile health center that has been serving rural areas since 2019. Operated by OSF HealthCare, the OSF OnCall King Care-A-Van offers enhanced virtual visits, health screenings, connection to community resources and health education to residents who might not otherwise have access to care. The health screenings and education are free services.

The OSF OnCall King Care-A-Van serves Bureau, Henry, LaSalle and Putnam counties.

OSF OnCall works with community members to find the best locations to utilize the OSF OnCall King Care-A-Van including housing authorities, homeless shelters, employers, schools, churches and other community organizations. The goal is to have the van in the community every weekday.

“That may be the YMCA, food pantries, homeless shelters, low-income apartment complexes or apartment complexes geared towards senior citizens or disabled people,” says Angela Wissel, manager of Community Health for OSF OnCall. The mobile health center is involved in many special events such as senior expos and back-to-school physicals.

The van is equipped to offer virtual visits using advanced digital devices that capture images and sounds from the ears, throat, heart and lungs to allow for a full assessment – all with guidance from the certified medical assistant and helped by a digital health navigator on board and the provider on screen. These visits are billed to your insurance just like a typical urgent care visit to a clinic.  

Patients can be referred to OSF OnCall digital health programs as well.

“Virtual urgent care is a newer service that we provide from the caravan,” says Wissel. “So, if you're not feeling well, need to see a provider, we can set up a visit right from the caravan with one of our OSF OnCall providers. They can diagnose things like pink eye, covid, flu, strep and send prescriptions right to your pharmacy, so you don't have to go anywhere.” 

The OSF OnCall King Care-A-Van was made possible in coordination with the OSF HealthCare Foundation and a generous donation made by Don and Val King of Manlius, in Bureau County, Illinois.

The King family has a passion for rural America. Over several generations, members of the family have experienced a few life-saving situations, which led to a special relationship between the Kings and OSF HealthCare. Don and Val donated the funds to purchase and equip a mobile health center.

The OSF Oncall King Care-A-Van has an array of staff members including certified medical assistant, digital health navigators who are familiar with the needs in the community, as well as dedicated drivers who get the van to and from each location.

Wissel says services such as the OSF OnCall King Care-A-Van are helping to shape the future of health care.

“By us coming right to the rural communities, rural America, we’re offering services right in your town, right down the street,” says Wissel. “It’s really going to be helpful for people to not have to travel, also using a lot of virtual platforms. Our phones, our iPads, our tablets, we can do that from the van, and we can also teach people how to do that from their homes."

For more information about the OSF OnCall King Care-A-Van or to request a visit or view upcoming events, visit the OSF HealthCare website. 

 

Interview Clips 

B-Roll

OSF HealthCare has partners with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Tata Elxsi, a global leader in design and technology services to address critical health care challenges in rural America. Historically, digital health innovations have concentrated on urban populations, leaving rural communities underserved. This pioneering initiative combines advanced technology with academic research from Gies College of Business and Carle Illinois College of Medicine, leveraging real-time OSF HealthCare data to deploy hyper-localized digital health kiosks funded by Jump ARCHES. These kiosks aim to improve healthcare accessibility and outcomes in underserved regions.

Rural areas face steep barriers to health care access, including limited technology awareness, long distances to doctors, poor network connectivity, low population density, and inadequate payer coverage. A detailed OSF-based analysis by the Gies College of Business found that extending access to primary and preventive care in remote and rural areas significantly reduces avoidable emergency care visits among these populations. The initiative focuses on chronic and behavioral diseases and addresses four key challenges: Hospital re-admission and post-acute care health monitoring, geographic and access barriers, health care education and preventive measures, and chronic disease management.

At the core of this initiative is Tata Elxsi’s TEngage platform, a scalable, effective and comprehensive digital health solution designed to deliver seamless health care in rural areas through the kiosks. These kiosks run on Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud infrastructure and incorporate technologies such as Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) for vital sign collection, Hospital Information System (HIS) integration, telehealth services, and secure data workflows. Discussions are underway to incorporate IoT-based remote monitoring, further enhancing the platform's capacity to deliver proactive, continuous care to rural communities.

Beginning in Illinois, the initiative will expand to many counties over three years through a phased approach that allows kiosks to adapt based on community usage and feedback. The kiosks will have advanced features, including telehealth integration, health monitoring, and AI analytics for epidemic tracking and predictive health care insights. Additionally, the devices offer cloud-based management, electronic health record connectivity, automated workflow, and telecom infrastructure that enhances connectivity. The TEngage platform ensures rapid deployment and scalability, establishing a foundation for broader adoption in the future.

Ann M. Willemsen-Dunlap, OSF HealthCare, said, “The computer interface that Tata Elxsi has developed will help community health workers as they bring health screenings and health connectivity to rural Illinois. This will strengthen OSF HealthCare’s ability to meet patients where they are, even if that is miles away from a hospital or clinic.”

Telecom service providers play a vital role in enabling this project by providing the critical last-mile connectivity required for seamless health care access in remote and rural communities. This collaboration demonstrates how partnerships between technology innovators, research institutions, and health care providers can effectively address societal challenges.  The initiative encourages community partners, clinicians, funders, and policymakers to participate in expanding this innovative model across the United States, creating a transformative, technology-driven blueprint for the future of rural healthcare.

Prof. Ujjal Kumar Mukherjee, Gies College of Business and Carle Illinois College of Medicine, added, “For people in remote and underserved areas, basic health care often means traveling long distances or having no access to care at all. But when health services are connected through a hub-and-spoke system—from hospitals to regional clinics, to mobile rural clinics, and finally to local health kiosks—we can bring care step-by-step closer to where people live. A simple kiosk at the last mile becomes more than a device; it’s the final link in a larger network that helps ensure no one is left out.”

Sreevatsa Sahasranaman, Sr. Vice President & Head of Healthcare Business at Tata Elxsi, said, “This partnership demonstrates our commitment to driving health care innovation and showcases how technology can make quality care accessible to all. By combining the University of Illinois’ research insights with our expertise, we are delivering hyper-customized care and impactful solutions that touch rural communities and elevate healthcare delivery to new milestones.”

An 80-bed acute care hospital, OSF Saint Katharine is one of Lee County’s largest employers.

The Most Rev. David J. Malloy, Bishop of the Diocese of Rockford, conducted the blessing and dedication ceremony on January 7, which followed months of work to integrate the former KSB facilities (including six clinic locations in Lee and Ogle counties) into OSF HealthCare. Additionally, OSF welcomes 900 new Mission Partners (employees) to the OSF Family.

In spring 2024, OSF HealthCare and Katherine Shaw Bethea Hospital (KSB Hospital) signed a letter of intent to obtain KSB, before finalizing agreements and seeking the necessary regulatory approvals.

“As health care continues to evolve, we are responsible for ensuring that we are planning for the future. The challenge of being a standalone, rural hospital in today’s financial environment, was an important element in our board’s consideration,” says David Schreiner, PhD, president/chief executive officer, KSB Hospital. “OSF HealthCare shares our deep commitment to caring for the health of rural communities and has demonstrated innovative ways to transform health care for the benefit of all people they serve.”

The hospital was originally named Katherine Shaw Bethea Hospital in 1897 when Judge Solomon Bethea donated his estate to honor his late wife, Katherine. The new name, OSF Saint Katharine, pays tribute to the hospital’s long-standing commitment to the Sauk Valley region and aligns with the values of OSF HealthCare.

“We have a great opportunity in Dixon and surrounding communities to advance healthcare that is connected to all the other pieces of OSF,” says August (AJ) Querciagrossa, CEO of the Western Region. “It's no different than our other communities, like Galesburg or Peru. When we talk about regional healthcare delivery models, I look at Dixon as a regional healthcare delivery model that will have access to higher, tertiary and quaternary care through the OSF network.”

Querciagrossa adds that he’s excited about the potential for the services that already exist at OSF Saint Katharine.

“We train the doctors of the future in Dixon, both in podiatry and in family medicine for our rural track,” says Querciagrossa. “I think that is imperative to all our successes, whether it's OSF or others, to continue to make sure rural medicine thrives.” 

OSF Saint Katharine will soon offer new services to the community including OSF OnCall, and OSF MyChart with the integration of Epic, the electronic medical record system used across the OSF Ministry. This will expand the focus on digital health access and other opportunities.

“The same people that are caring for all of our patients and our community members now are going to care for you with love and compassion,” says Jackie Kernan, president of OSF Saint Katharine.  “You're going to notice our name has changed, but the compassionate cares remain the same.”

A local community advisory council has been established to provide advice and counsel to hospital management and OSF. The council will focus on insight, guidance and the development of local strategies, in addition to providing feedback on the management of local facilities.

“I hope for our Dixon community members, that they feel that OSF came in and did an amazing job of enhancing the care that was provided,” says Kernan. “That they feel comfortable with the services and feel proud that we're here and that we're serving our community with Mission-driven care.”

With the addition of OSF Saint Katharine, OSF HealthCare employs nearly 25,000 Mission Partners at more than 150 locations – including 17 hospitals throughout Illinois and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

“For me and for all of our communities, thank you for the welcome, thank you for the kindness, your patience with us in the process as we get to know you better,” says Querciagrossa. “We're very grateful for that support, and truly looking forward to a very healthy and happy 2025.”

AJ Querciagrossa Interview Clips 

Jackie Kernan Interview Clips 

B-Roll 

More than 1.5 million rural Illinois residents face significant health care access barriers due to a lack of resources and limited infrastructure. OSF HealthCare serves many rural communities in Illinois and Michigan and leaders are looking at telehealth and digital health tools and platforms to bridge those gaps.

Part of the strategy involves collaborating with academic partners such as Illinois State University in Normal. A team made up of faculty at ISU and clinicians from OSF is working on a project to educate the future workforce on using a telehealth platform that can allow real-time assessments, consultations, diagnosis and creation of care plans, along with providing health education for people with chronic conditions in rural, medically underserved communities with aging populations.

The project called STARTED – Simulation to Address Rural Telehealth Education Development is funded by a joint OSF-ISU Connected Communities grant as part of an ongoing collaboration.

Associate Dean for Academics, Susie Watkins, PhD, RN, Mennonite College of Nursing at Illinois State says the platform will allow nurses to hold pop up clinics in homeless shelters or other community sites.

“This would help us provide some care in a community like that where they don't otherwise have access to health care, and that could potentially avoid them having to use the emergency room for things like ear infections and strep throat,” Watkins says. 

The platform also has attachments that can be used for physical exams performed by a nurse. Data and video from the exam could then be sent back to a provider at a distant hospital or clinic to review and offer a diagnosis and treatment recommendations, including prescriptions or referrals to a specialist.

Watkins holds up attachments as she explains, “It has an attachable otoscope that would record a full ear exam to determine if the ears are inflamed, and then also has an oral tongue depressor feature that one could examine the back of the throat for potential tonsillitis. 

There are other devices that can connect to the platform to provide assessments on heartbeat, lung sounds, blood pressure and other tests such as blood glucose levels that can be sent to the off-site provider via the platform.

The Director of Interprofessional Education at Jump Simulation, Ann Willemsen-Dunlap, CRNA, PhD, is co-lead on the collaboration for the first year of training 120 Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) and 24 Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) graduate students. She’s supporting the development of web-based learning modules that use patient scenarios, video vignettes and telehealth simulations using standardized participants.

Trained actors will be used

Standardized participants are specially trained actors who portray patients from rural communities with various health challenges. The actors also provide an assessment with standardized metrics that measure competency in various areas including wellness screening, disease specific illness-related triage, disease self-management support using motivational interviewing and person-centered goal planning techniques. Willemsen-Dunlap says the standardized participants also give verbal feedback once the simulation is over.

“They’re going to be talking with their learners about how the interaction made them, as patients, feel from a first-person perspective.” 

Willemsen-Dunlap says eventually community health workers, as trusted advisors, can be trained to go into homes within medically underserved communities to help patients get comfortable with the portable technology that allow for in-home exams, rather than requiring patients to travel long distances for care.

“I think that having a community health worker present in the home to facilitate the interaction and nurses who are skilled and comfortable working in the digital environment, as well as providers who had similar training is going to be the key to success,” Willemsen-Dunlap stresses. 

Other funding sources are being sought from governmental or non-governmental organizations to support additional work to implement a rural health mobile clinic that uses this training and technology to deliver exams and health-related care within underserved communities.

In areas of so-called connectivity deserts, where the internet is not available or is unreliable, OSF OnCall, the health system’s digital care arm, could use an OSF OnCall Connect On the Go van for exams using the enhanced virtual platform and on-site connectivity.

Watkins says one-third of older adults in rural communities have two or more chronic diseases so its important patients continue to stay on track in managing them.  

“This technology would allow nurses to connect with patients on an ongoing basis between provider visits and do that condition specific assessment and also the self-care assessment and make sure that the patient is staying on target with their goals and all of the treatment recommendations made by their provider at the previous visit.” 

In the future, training could also involve behavioral health or dietary students who could be brought in on a telehealth visit to receive training on how to address additional concerns that are influencing a patient’s overall health and wellbeing.

Video clips with Susie Watkins

Video clips with Ann Willemsen-Dunlap

B-roll of robust telehealth platform