Paul's Cabinet1 Introduction
Recently, Electric vehicles (EVs) are a key piece of the net-zero carbon future puzzle, and the electric vehicle market is growing exponentially. Countries and governments around the world are recognizing the importance of these zero-emission vehicles and consequently including them in their decarbonization plans. This megatrend fits into the big picture of Hyundai aims to free future cities and people from constraints of time and space and allow them to create more value in their lives.
Hyundai Motors will become a first-mover instead of a fast-follower in the era of future mobility by focusing on electric vehicles, particularly Mobile Healthcare Clinic, the emerging segment of purpose-built vehicles (PBV).
One of the fastest-growing EV vehicle manufacturers in the world plans to design a new business model that combined medical programs, Medical Devices, equipment, and products into Purposed based Vehicles in partnership with local providers in New York. To help foster this plan StepintoCity, a Brooklyn-based company engaged with the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, and Mount Sinai health system to serve as its U.S representatives and local partner.
1.1 Overview
1.1.1 Mission Statement
The mission of StepintoCity is to grow health sector partnerships between global and U.S. businesses in order to benefit the needs of U.S. local communities. We will begin by building a healthcare mobility program in Brooklyn, NY, called “Stella in Motion.” It will be created through combined healthcare services designed around Hyundai Motor’s Electric Vehicle (EV) and digital transformation of current healthcare technology.
1.1.2 The Problem and Proposed Solution
Although the U.S. healthcare system continues to develop its delivery models, certain communities still remain disenfranchised from receiving basic healthcare services. These communities lack access to basic preventative health services, which results in health disparities.
In order to play a key role as an effective health service delivery model, StepintoCity has partnered with Hyundai Motors™ to develop a Mobile Health Clinic (MHC) Platform Prototype called “Stella in Motion.” The platform is a mutually beneficial partnership that supports the Hyundai Motors™ vision to build new markets through purpose-based vehicles and Brooklyn’s vision to provide community-based healthcare delivery models.
1.1.3 The Partners
Hyundai Motors, StepintoCity, and Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce and its affiliates have joined together to create an innovative Mobile Healthcare Platform. Based on the brand vision ‘Progress in Humanity,’ Hyundai Motors is accelerating its transformation into a Smart Mobility Solution Provider. StepintoCity, a healthcare service design company, also executes the maintenance, repair, and operation of the project. The Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce is the most influential business advocacy organization in New York State, which conducts activities in four key areas – promotion, support, advocacy, and convening.
1.1.4 The Clinics
Hyundai Motors EV buses will be equipped with medical equipment such as x-ray machines, ultrasounds, and more, along with innovative digital technology to enhance the experience of mobile health clinics for both patients and practitioners. Partner healthcare professionals and organizations will provide knowledge of all applicable local, state, and federal regulations governing the delivery of selected health services. The target patient population is people aged over 65 in chronic disease groups who are medically disenfranchised and part of underserved populations.
1.1.5 Requests for Proposals
In December of 2021, StepintoCity released an RFP to seek potential medical provider collaborators. We sent out RFP’s to hospitals, clinics, and organizations that had previous experience with mobile clinic programs who were potentially looking to either expand their current program or develop a new one. We were not specific about the type of services that the organization needed to provide, though we did specify that they needed either an outreach infrastructure already in place, or a plan to create one. We asked for a detailed budget outline for one year, and a projection for what the future or their program would look like beyond the SIM pilot project.
1.1.6 Challenges
One of the biggest challenges we have discovered is a long-term parking solution for the mobile clinic vehicles in New York City. As these are electric vehicles, we have the additional challenge of finding parking with a charging station, or a place where we can install a charging station. Due to the climate, it would be ideal that this place is covered and protected from weather. Due to the nature of an urban environment, it would also be ideal that this place is secure. Our next biggest challenge is outreach. Building trust in a community is one of the most important aspects of a successful mobile clinic program, and that takes time, cultural humility and learning, and continuous effort. This will require research and relationship-building with community partners. Digital transformation of healthcare mobile clinics is part of our mission in this project, and also proves to be a challenge we are tackling by seeking out new partnerships in the innovation space of digital healthcare technology.
1.1.7 Future Goals
Launch a scalable and replicable fleet of Mobile Healthcare Clinics each year beginning in Brooklyn and New York City, then expanding regionally, nationally, and internationally.
1.2 History of the project
From the start of 2021, the proposal for Mobile Clinic Healthcare, using Hyundai Motors’ EV, was developed and proposed to Hyundai Motors. Preparation for the agenda and project goal was discussed with the leadership which made the project into 3 steps: Discovery, Shift, Conceptual Design.
Before the Official Kick-off of the project, a 1-month Pre-discovery Stage was added in order to revise and validate the project plan & direction, conduct desk research, interview with professionals, and fix major project members.
The Discovery stage started with the official kickoff, with key stakeholders, advisors, and Hyundai Motors Leadership as participants (Appendix A1). During the Discovery Stage, project members participated in the Annual Conference of Mobile Healthcare Association(MHA) in order to gain practical knowledge of the mobile healthcare market and find potential partners. With this conference, we were able to be registered as an official member of the MHA and as members of the Regional Coalition of New York City. We have also prepared a packed itinerary for Hyundai Motors' member visit to NY. During the visit, we have conducted meetings with various organizations ranging from Traditional Healthcare providers, Digital Healthcare Providers, Advisors, Mobile Clinic Operators, and third-party companies. After the visit, we gained valuable practical insights on how we should deploy the project. As we checked the intention of providers’ participation in this project, a few major issues were found and needed to be addressed such as the ownership of the vehicle, the clear roll, profit and benefit for each party, as well as operational issues which will be discussed within this report.
As part of addressing these issues, the Shift Stage started with the distribution of the Request for Proposal(RFP) to the potential healthcare providers. Within the limited time, Mount Sinai Health System could submit a proposal addressing lung cancer diagnosis, treatment, and recovery programs. During this time, we continued to build up relations to find potential collaboration points with candidate partner companies. In this stage, a plan for user experience was conducted to develop a virtual platform gallery. This virtual gallery is aimed to demonstrate a more immersive user experience and better display of the project elements. The gallery plans to display mock-up versions of mobile clinics, information of project-related companies and services, as well as major stakeholders. (Discovery and Shift stage report can be found in Appendix A2)
Starting in 2022, the Conceptual Design Stage, there was a reorganization of departments within Hyundai Motors. The original Hyundai department undertaking the mobile clinic project moved to Transportation as a Service (TAAS), a department focusing on mobility and logistics. Because of this, it has become more important to display the project outcome to explain why this project needs to be deployed and how Hyundai could make a profit as a core business.
Near the end of this project, J.Paul Kang, CEO of StepintoCity, and Randy Peers, President of Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce will visit Hyundai Motors during the 21st to 25th to present the project results and discuss the next steps. Signing a new agreement form between StepintoCity and Hyundai Motors will be discussed.
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