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Prisma and OnMed pitch ‘clinic in a box’ to City of Columbia to ease ED burden and serve unhoused residents
Summary
Prisma Health and OnMed presented an OnMed care-station model — an ADA-accessible, plug-and-play telehealth kiosk — citing deployments that reduced EMS calls and offering a subscription model; staff and council discussed partnerships, wraparound services and cost implications.
Lisa McFarland, vice president for OnMed and a clinical pharmacist, presented the OnMed care station as a turnkey option for expanding access to low-acuity care in Columbia.
"OnMed is a clinic in a box," McFarland said, describing a private, ADA-accessible 8-by-10 unit equipped with a digital stethoscope, otoscope, blood-pressure cuff, thermal scanner and a 65-inch video connection to a live clinician. She said visits run about 20 minutes and that the platform diagnoses and treats most everyday conditions on-site; mental-health consults will be added later this year. McFarland described deployments at South Carolina State University, homeless shelters and other host sites and said the system can serve patients as young as 2.
A Prisma Health representative who opened the presentation framed the proposal as partnership-driven and introduced OnMed to the committee as one tool among broader community efforts. "We recognize the significance of some opportunities right here in the heart of Columbia," the representative said, urging local collaboration.
Stacy McPhail, executive director of Accountable Communities at Prisma, pointed committee members to a handout showing regional uninsured counts and emergency-department costs. "If you go down to the middle of the page, you see the number of uninsured patients... a $104,000,000 is really what people are paying for emergency-department cost across The Midlands," McPhail said, arguing wraparound services should accompany any care-station deployment.
Council members pressed on practical matters: current local deployments, pediatric use and cost. McFarland said OnMed has an installation at South Carolina State University and other sites; the care station supports pediatric care down to age 2. On price, McFarland said the baseline subscription fee is $30,000 per month (about $360,000 per year) for standard hours (7 a.m.–6 p.m.), which covers clinician hiring, licensing, credentialing, device maintenance and reporting.
McFarland cited a Tampa deployment in which the city saw a reported 50% reduction in EMS calls from the shelter population within three months, and she emphasized features intended to promote continuity of care: the ability to send care summaries into electronic health records and integrated language-line support for hundreds of languages.
Committee members and staff discussed how OnMed might integrate with local shelters, FQHCs and hospital systems and stressed the need for wraparound services — social workers and community-health workers — so patients are connected to housing, medication assistance and referrals beyond immediate clinical care. No formal action was taken; councilmembers expressed interest in further conversations and additional follow-up with OnMed and Prisma Health.
The HSEA committee asked staff to return with more data and potential cost-sharing or partnership models; the presentation closed with members expressing support for exploring a pilot aligned with local nonprofits and county partners.
