VIM HISTORY
VISION
“May we have eyes to see those rendered invisible and excluded,
Open arms and hearts to reach out and include them,
Healing hands to touch their lives with love,
And in the process heal ourselves.”
MISSION
Our primary mission is to understand and serve the health and wellness needs of the medically underserved population and their households, living and/or working on Hilton Head and Daufuskie Islands.
“Why haven’t I been helping these people find adequate health care?”
Dr. Jack McConnell murmured the question, almost out loud to himself. It was a question that posed itself with almost irritating frequency. Every time he left his more-than-comfortable home in the gated Hilton Head Plantation community by way of the back entrance, he was confronted with fellow islanders living in relative poverty. He at first had asked where they received their health care. The answer, he knew now, was in the emergency room or nowhere.
In January 1992, convinced that he had a unique plan to provide free health care to those who couldn’t afford it, McConnell met with a group of retired physicians in a Hilton Head Regional Medical Center conference room. He described his vision: retired doctors, nurses, dentists, and other professionals would be the volunteer staff providing free care to medically underserved people in a clinic built specifically for that purpose. At the conclusion of his meeting, sixteen retired physicians agreed to work in his clinic if he could get it off the ground. Armed with that commitment, Jack set about the business of creating a clinic to meet the health care needs of poor families living and working on Hilton Head Island.
Licensure Requirements Waived
Obtaining South Carolina licenses for retired physicians from other states and finding a way to pay for malpractice insurance were two major hurdles to overcome. A bill to waive licensure fees and provide for Special Purpose Examination Tests was defeated by the South Carolina General Assembly. Undaunted, Dr. McConnell successfully sought assistance from the South Carolina Medical and Hospital Associations and from Representative Billy Houck. In May of 1992, an amendment for waiver of fees and the SPEX test was submitted to the General Assembly and passed. In July of that year, Governor Carroll Campbell signed the bill into law, and in so doing, directed the South Carolina Board of Medical Examiners to create a special volunteer license.
Insurance Coverage
Simultaneously, McConnell approached the Joint Underwriters Association to provide malpractice insurance coverage. After extensive correspondence with the South Carolina Legislature, the Association became convinced that the state’s Good Samaritan Law, which places a cap of $200,000 on any malpractice awards that might result from free care given by a physician in an emergency, extended to the free care to be provided at the Volunteers in Medicine Clinic. In July, the Joint Underwriters Association offered malpractice insurance to the clinic, enabling physicians volunteering their services on clinic premises to do so unencumbered with expensive, individual malpractice coverage. (To this day, the clinic has never had to use that coverage!)
February 1993
By February of 1993, 55 physicians, 68 nurses, 7 dentists, 2 chiropractors, 2 social workers, 2 dental assistants, 2 medical technicians and over 100 lay persons had volunteered to participate. The Town of Hilton Head agreed to lease a 1.1 acre building site, charging the clinic one dollar per year.
While the actual clinic building was being constructed with donated funds, McConnell set up a temporary facility in space donated by the hospital, and in June of 1993, free immunization clinics began running two afternoons a week. By year’s end, the part-time clinic had immunized nearly 1,000 island children.
TODAY – MARCH 2011
Volunteers in Medicine Clinic has just celebrated its 18th year of serving the community and has provided more than 200,000 patient visits. VIM is open five days a week, 52 weeks a year, with the exception of 10 holidays a year.
In the calendar year 2010, Volunteers in Medicine provided 21,277 appointments, and served 13,415 walk-in patients resulting in a total of 34,692 patient visits.
At the core of Volunteers in Medicine is our team of more than 600 volunteers, composed of retired and active medical professionals and citizens who are concerned with the health and quality of life of the entire community. These volunteers work in all areas of the Clinic: 110 physicians, 100 registered nurses, 4 pharmacists, 4 pharmacy techs, 22 mental health and social service professionals, 25 dentists, 6 hygienists and dental assistants, 4 lab techs, 3 nutritionists, and 350 lay volunteers. Combined, these volunteers donate approximately 1,000 hours per week to the clinic and to our patients and their families.
VIM’s staff of eight dedicated professionals and the volunteers enable the Clinic to provide a wide variety of health, dental and mental health care services free of charge to underserved and underinsured individuals and their families. Those services include primary care and specialty services. In addition, patients with chronic illness are seen in a “Clinic within a Clinic” setting using the disease management model. Patients with diabetes, hypertension, asthma and thyroid disease are managed in this manner.
When Volunteers in Medicine patients have medical needs or require procedures beyond our scope of services, our staff works with medical facilities in the region to arrange the appropriate referral. Often our referred patients are treated at lowered costs by cooperative specialists and institutions.
To be eligible for VIM health care services, an individual must live or work on Hilton Head or Daufuskie Islands, or be the dependant of someone who does. They must also be underinsured or uninsured, and have a household income equal to or less than twice the federal poverty level. For example, a single adult’s gross monthly income cannot exceed $1,730. For married couples, and with each additional qualifying family member, the monthly income amount increases proportionately.
The majority of VIM’s patients are from working families who simply cannot afford health insurance. About 70% are employed by one or more of the 2,200 businesses in this area. This Clinic serves all ethnic backgrounds. Our current patient census is 60% Latino, 20% Caucasian, 18% Native Islanders/African Americans, 2% other including a number of Asian/Pacific Islanders, Native Americans and other.
Volunteers in Medicine neither seeks nor receives government funding. The Clinic depends on grants, individual donations, sponsorships, events, bequests and other forms of fundraising to raise approximately $1.8 million for this year.
ROLE MODEL FOR OTHER CLINICS
The relentless efforts of Dr. Jack McConnell have provided the opportunity for Hilton Head Island to significantly alter its character by offering, to rich and poor alike, adequate access to health care. Today, through the help of the Volunteers in Medicine Institute, there are over 80 free health care clinics operating on the VIM model throughout the United States, with many more in the planning stages.
RECOGNITION
VIM received the highest possible rating from Charity Navigator in 2010, a national organization that ranks non-profits based on the way it manages income.
The American Medical Association instituted the Jack B. McConnell Award for Volunteerism in Medicine in 2006 to recognize health care workers throughout the nation who benefit their communities through volunteering.
