Harvard Family Van Saved Millions of $$

When the people who don’t have the resources to get into the hospital, how much do you think it costs? Well, now we have an idea. The Family Van, offered by Harvard Medical School, says it has “saved the health care system roughly $20 million last year by getting hard-to-reach patients to stick with treatments and avoid costly care in hospital emergency rooms.”

The clinic on wheels offers free tests to people in low-income neighborhoods, and has done so for over 15 years. The Van sees about 5,000 patients a year, 80 percent of which would “have ended up in a hospital emergency room if the van wasn’t around.”

Image: sxc.hu.