The Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) State Office of Rural Health http://texasagriculture.gov and Shriners Hospital for Children in Galveston www.shrinershospitalsforChildren.org/locations/Galveston are collaborating to provide world class burn care to Texans living in rural communities across the state.
Designated by the American Burn Association and American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma Shriners Hospitals for Children in Galveston provides highly specialized acute reconstructive and rehabilitative care for children with burns and other soft tissue conditions. Telemedicine is used to help treat critically burned children in need of immediate medical care who do not live close to a nearby hospital.
In another move to use telemedicine, state legislation passed in the Texas House, requires the Commission on State Emergency Communications www.scec.texas.gov and Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHC) www.ttuhsc.edu to establish a pilot project to provide emergency medical services instruction and emergency pre-hospital care instruction through a telemedicine medical service.
TDA recently awarded a grant to TTUHC for this pilot project. This project will implement telemedicine technology among EMS providers and trauma centers to connect them with specialty hospitals like Shriners Hospitals for Children.
In addition, the Plainview Foundation for Rural Health Advancement (PFRHA) in Hart Texas plus partners are going to offer medical, dental, and mental health services to small rural farming and ranching communities that have a declining population and economy with no or very limited medical resources.
The PFRHA project is going to serve a six county area of the Texas Panhandle where the target population is uninsured, underinsured, or publicly insured. The focus will be on oral health delivery and mental health services complimenting established primary medical care with the help of telemedicine.
The PFRHA Outreach Project a non-profit foundation operating several community medical clinics, dental clinics, and a school-based health center plus using telemedicine capabilities, is going to provide almost $600,000 in funding for these health services from 2015 to 2018.
Consortium partners working with PFRHA include Hart Independent School District, Pope Dental, Nelson Counseling, TTUHC Pediatric Department, and Texas A&M University Health Science Center Family Practice Department in Victoria.
For more information on FFRHA, email Retta Knox at rettaknox@gmail.com.