Penn State College of Medicine announced on July 11 that it has received a five-year, $2.5 million grant from the Human Resources and Services Administration to fund a new street medicine program serving unsheltered populations in both urban and rural areas of southcentral Pennsylvania.
The initiative aims to deliver healthcare services directly to people experiencing homelessness while also training future physicians in street medicine. Joanie Miller, physician assistant in palliative care at Penn State Health and medical director of the street medicine program, said that the model involves healthcare providers going out to meet people where they live—whether under bridges, on the streets, or within rural green spaces—and providing primary care with patients' permission and on their terms. "Most people go into healthcare because they want to be able to help," Miller said. "Sometimes it takes taking off the proverbial white coat and entering someone else's space to really connect with them on a human level and provide the care that they really need. It's a chance to keep the human aspect of medicine alive."
DeWaters explained that Penn State's expertise as a national leader in health systems science will be leveraged by this grant, building upon previous awards from the American Medical Association aimed at aligning medical education with health system needs and improving systems-based practice. "We have a broken healthcare system," DeWaters said, "It's critical to understand where the holes in the healthcare system are, so that you learn how to try and address those gaps for all of your patients, no matter who they are. I can't imagine a better venue to see how broken the system is than to go out and see people who essentially don't have access to the system at all."
With this funding, Penn State College of Medicine plans to create both a curriculum for internal medicine residents focused on street medicine as well as develop an operational clinical team expected to begin seeing individuals in January 2027—starting with an urban area in Lebanon County before expanding outreach into rural communities.
Internal medicine residents will participate through classroom instruction featuring multimedia materials such as podcasts and videos along with clinical rotations within the street medicine program itself. The team also intends to use human-centered design principles throughout development for continuous improvement.
Beyond patient health outcomes, DeWaters suggested participation could reduce burnout among medical residents—a trend observed during earlier work funded by an American Medical Association grant—as open discussions about problems in healthcare helped residents feel empowered: "They believed that they could make the system better, that the system isn't a fixed thing that you can't change." Other members involved include Alia Chisty, Leah Ross, Amanda Cooper, Paul Haidet, Jennie Adams, and Tanush Vanamala.
