Rural healthcare providers will be able to improve their telehealth connections with patients and communities thanks to more than $8.6 million in grant money provided by the US Department of Agriculture. The telehealth grants are part of a $20 million program that covers both healthcare projects and distance learning infrastructure for rural students. Of the 65 grants in this round of funding, 31 are related to telehealth, announced Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced last week.
“Delivering these programs to rural communities that often do not have access to quality, affordable medical and educational services has tremendous economic and social benefits,” Vilsack said on November 20, which was National Rural Health Day. Healthcare organizations in thirty-four states will receive grant money from the USDA, including the Iowa eHealth Extension Network, which has received nearly half a million dollars to equip 60 sites with HD cameras, secure video conferencing, and cloud-based image sharing.
The grants stem from a 2011 collaborative agreement between the USDA and HHS, which recognized the need to help rural practitioners build and maintain connections with far-flung patients in between trips to the physician’s office or the hospital.
“Beginning with Iowa in June 2013, HHS and USDA jointly launched a pilot initiative that generated more than $38 million in financing to Critical Access Hospitals and small, rural hospitals across four states by September 2013,” explain Leila Samy, Rural Health IT Coordinator at the ONC and Bill Menner, State Director in Iowa, USDA, Rural Development, in a blog post on HealthIT Buzz. “As of October 2014, we had expanded this initiative to reach doctors, clinics and hospitals caring for rural and poor communities across 13 states: Iowa, Kansas, Illinois, Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Tennessee, Missouri, Montana, Wyoming and Kentucky.”
“In those states where the collaboration is occurring, we have seen investments of nearly $40 million in health IT,” added Menner. “Our staff in the field, with information and contacts from ONC, is helping rural hospitals and clinics see how they can upgrade their IT systems.”
Some of the notable grants include:
- More than $480,000 to the California Telehealth Network to extend telehealth capabilities to five agencies that serve patients in eight different counties
- $51,000 for Home-Health Visiting Nurses of Southern Maine to connect providers with 36 rural towns, focusing on medically fragile children and seniors suffering from chronic diseases
- $217,000 to Munson Medical Center in Michigan, which will link specialists with providers in remote locations to treat patients with bleeding disorders as well as provide continuing education
- Over $336,000 to provide remote care for members of the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe through clinics and community centers located on their reservation lands
- Close to $450,000 for the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center to tackle the care and prevention of Hepatitis C while delivering community education on the virus
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Jennifer Bresnick
Quelle/Source: EHR Intelligence, 24.11.2014
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