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Mission: The primary mission of the volunteers in medicine clinic 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.
Programs: In fiscal year 2016, volunteers in medicine hilton head island provided care through more than 27,500 patient visits across 23 medical specialties and five disease managment clinics. This was all accomplished through the work of more than 600 volunteers including physicians, nurses, dentists, hygienists, mental health professionals and lay volunteers. Collectively, these volunteers gave more than 52,000 hours of service to enable the clinic to successfully meet its mission to provide healthcare to the medically underserved living and/or working on hilton head and daufuskie islands. Vim continues to permeate a message of wellness throughout the clinic. Although vim will always be there to treat our patients' critical needs. We are currently implementing a comprehensive wellness and preventative care program for vim patients. Research confirms that the burden of chronic disease is concentrated within low income patients such as those who rely on vim for their healthcare needs. Furthermore, chronic disease and poverty often initiate a vicious cycle as the combination of both instigates a downward spiral of worsening poverty and disease. Although vim's patients do experience higher rates of chronic disease and risk factors for developing such, simple behavior modification and lifestyle changes can significantly reduce complications associated with chronic disease and decrease inherent risk. Instead of waiting to treat the seriously ill, vim continues to make efforts to reach out to our patients, screen them for risk factors, treat them as necessary and actively encourage their participation in vim's walking, weight loss, and healthy living programs.