Addressing Community Health Needs for Comprehensive Care, with Mindy Hoang, MD

Clinical care alone doesn’t account for why many patients stay sick. Factors like housing, food access, income, and immigration status shape health outcomes long before—and long after—a clinic visit. For many frontline providers, especially in under-resourced settings, the gap between medical treatment and real-world barriers is a daily frustration. Understanding how social determinants affect care helps providers respond more effectively to patients' circumstances.

Recognizing that addressing community health needs is essential to care, clinicians at Wayne State University in Detroit have started the Community Aid and Resource Distribution (CARD) initiative to help providers address and assist patients with community health needs. Mindy Hoang, MD, a first-year resident at Wayne State, presented the CARD initiative at the American College of Physicians (ACP) Internal Medicine (IM) Meeting 2025, held April 3-5, in New Orleans, Louisiana.

“This could be a very good solution if you are in a low resource and low income setting, especially if you don't have a lot of resources like us, this might be a good thing to duplicate, to give your physicians, whether it be residents or whether it be practicing physicians, a good resource to kind of touch base with, and it's also really accessible too,” Hoang told HCPLive during the meeting.

HCPLive spoke with Hoang to learn more about the importance of projects like the CARD initiative and addressing community health needs. She gave an overview of the project, how it’s been implemented, and its reception. She also discussed further research that her group is pursuing to further help address these needs.

Hoang has no disclosures to report.

REFERENCE

Hoang M. Addressing Social Determinants of Health Through The Community Aid and Resource Distribution (CARD) Initiative. Presented at: ACP IM Meeting 2025; April 3-5; New Orleans, Louisiana.