HHS has awarded $980,000 to three institutions to establish the Heartland Telehealth Resource Center, intended to assist physicians in treating rural patients with the help of technology, the Kansas City Business Journal reports (Van Dyke, Kansas City Business Journal, 9/7).
The three groups involved are:
- The University of Kansas Medical Center;
- The University of Missouri School of Medicine's Missouri Telehealth Network; and
- The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center's Oklahoma Center for Telemedicine.
The grant for the center will be spread across three years (Kansas Health Institute News, 9/7).
Nearly 90% of counties in the three states are considered rural, and many residents have limited access to health care. The center will seek to address the issue of access to care by developing resources and market strategies to expand telehealth services (Kansas City Business Journal, 9/7).
The center plans to launch a Facebook page and use other social media to provide information about the program (Kansas Health Institute News, 9/7).
Ryan Spaulding, director of the Kansas University Center for Telemedicine and Telehealth, said, "Almost any tool a health professional would normally use can be used through telemedicine," adding, "We want to test whether increasing patient demand will increase doctors' willingness to embrace this method of providing care" (Kansas City Business Journal, 9/7).