*This is an archive page. The links are no longer being updated. 
 1994.
11.10 :  Rural Telemedicine Projects

Contact:  Shelly Burgess (HRSA)(301) 443-3376
Thursday, Nov. 10, 1994


      HRSA AWARDS $4.5 MILLION FOR RURAL TELEMEDICINE PROJECTS

     HHS Secretary Donna E. Shalala today announced the award of
$4.5 million in three-year grants to support 11 telemedicine
projects in 10 states that will improve access to specialty health
care for rural residents. 

     These awards were made under the Rural Telemedicine Grant
Program, which is administered by the Health Resources and Services
Administration's Office of Rural Health Policy.

     Secretary Shalala said, "Telemedicine has the potential to
strengthen rural health care service so it is important that we
study its use more systematically as these grants will permit."

     Telemedicine is the use of telecommunications technologies to
help deliver health care services.  Applications can include using
computers to transmit data and images and using two-way interactive
video so that isolated rural patients can receive medical advice
from a doctor hundreds of miles away. 

     The ability to transmit information electronically can also
facilitate the development of service networks that allow clinics,
hospitals and emergency service providers to work together within a
region to give residents a full range of care.

     Philip R. Lee, M.D., HHS assistant secretary for health and
director of the Public Health Service, said, "Telemedicine
services have shown that telecommunications technologies can
overcome distance, and physicians can monitor distant patients,
provide consultations, deliver mental health services and promote
preventive measures.  We hope to demonstrate how these same
technologies can be applied to rural people who can't easily access
care."

     As a condition of the award, the 11 new grantees are required
to set up networks that will offer eight specialty services, mental
health and/or substance abuse, radiology, cardiology, dermatology,
obstetrics and gynecology, orthopedics, subspecialties of pediatrics
and trauma services.

     In addition to the $4.5 million in new grants announced today,
continuation funding of $800,000 was also awarded to the Robert C.
Byrd Health Sciences Center's telemedicine pilot project in West
Virginia.  Begun in 1992, the center successfully provides 24-hour
medical consultations, emergency assistance and continuing education
to remote areas. 
     HRSA is a Public Health Service agency within HHS.

     A list of the FY 1994 new telemedicine grantees follows:

                 Rural Telemedicine FY 1994 Grantees


Grantee                                 City/State               Amount

     
High Plains Rural Health Network   Fort Morgan, Colo.        $  499,056
University of Kentucky             Lexington, Ky.               415,320
University of Minnesota            Minneapolis, Minn.           294,052
University of Missouri             Columbia, Mo.                411,124
Deaconess-Billings Clinic          Billings, Mont.              334,000
Good Samaritan Healthy Systems     Kearney, Neb.                479,060
Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital      Cooperstown, N.Y.            250,000
East Carolina University           Greenville, N.C.             438,970
University of North Carolina       Chapel Hill, N.C.            464,160
Rapid City Regional Hospital       Rapid City, S.D.             460,680
University of Washington           Seattle, Wash.               499,993

TOTAL                                                        $4,546,415
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