USDA https://www.rd.usda.gov recently awarded 72 grants totaling $23.6 million through their Distance Learning and Telemedicine (DLT) Grant Program. The program invests in equipment that uses broadband to help rural communities connect to educational and healthcare services. Several recipients will use the grants to help address two of the nation’s most urgent needs which include opioid abuse treatment and mental health counseling.
The grant funding is supporting projects based in Alaska, Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia Washington, and West Virginia.
Some of the grant awards include:
- New York State Office of Mental Health will receive $500,000 to purchase telemedicine equipment to help 19 hubs and 66 end user sites obtain video conferencing equipment, tablets, and software
- MaineHealth will receive $274,092 to fund a three component telehealth network. Ten hospitals will be hub and user sites and connect to 13 ambulance companies
- Avera Health will receive $484,271 to help implement a telehealth project to enhance labor and delivery and post-partum services for mothers and babies at eleven rural hospitals
- Quorum Health Corporation will receive $485,395 to purchase equipment to provide telemedicine services in hospitals, medical clinics, and schools in eight states
- Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium will receive $484,632 to purchase video conferencing equipment to provide behavioral health specialty care including addiction medicine and psychiatry to 111 communities by providing mobile telemedicine carts
- Lincoln Community Hospital and Nursing Home will receive $265,622 to establish a telemedicine network to serve more than 20,000 residents. Telemedicine connections will enable emergency departments connect to behavioral health providers to move patients in crisis into more appropriate care settings
- Southern Tier Health Care Systems, Inc., in Olean N.Y. will receive $132,899 to deploy telecommunications equipment to help train and certify emergency responders to deal with opioid overdoses
Go to https://www.rd.usda.gov/programs-services/distance-learning-telemedicine-grants for more details on all of the DLT grant awards.