USDA awarded $39.6 million through USDA’s “Distance Learning and Telemedicine (DLT) Grant Program to enable 118 projects to increase access to job training, education, and healthcare services in rural areas. More than 4.5 million residents in 40 states and three territories will benefit from the funding.
The partial list of USDA’s DLT grant awards in rural communities related to healthcare includes:
- Avera Health received $436,054 to purchase telemedicine equipment to expand Avera health’s telehealth network to connect 42 end-user sites across other sites to their hub in Sioux Falls, SD
- Freeport Regional Health Care Foundation received $328,215 to help purchase telecommunication equipment to connect six rural hubs with 10 facilities servicing rural residents in Northern Illinois
- St. John’s Hospital received $429,008 to help address opioid misuse by purchasing and installing interactive telemedicine equipment. A telehealth network will be implemented at 14 healthcare facilities in 13 central Illinois counties
- Primary Care Providers received $499,592 to develop telemedicine to connect rural patients in 9 Louisiana parishes to receive behavioral health specialty care and opioid treatment services
- Lake Regional Health System received $443,417 to establish the Lake Regional Mid-Missouri Telemedicine program to provide specialty physician telemedicine care within 13 facilities in 5 rural mid-Missouri counties
- Metropolitan Community Health Services received $375,996 to provide opioid treatment services via telemedicine to 6 end-user sites in rural eastern North Carolina. Equipment includes mobile carts with video conferencing units
- Rural Health Partners Inc. received $499,800 to help Heartland Health Alliance use telemedicine to help provide mental health and other medical specialty care throughout Nebraska plus provide treatment for opioid misuse
- Renown Health received $439,312 to help deliver the Telehealth and Healthcare Education Expansion program via 2 hub-only sites and at 11 medically underserved end-user sites in Nevada
- St. Anthony Hospital received $457,020 to help SSM Healthcare of Oklahoma purchase telemedicine equipment to expand their current Telehealth Network to serve up to 3,434 inpatients and 3,401 outpatients
Go to https://www.rd.usda.gov/files/USDADLT-NRChartOctober31_2018.pdf for the full list of the projects included in the USDA DLT funding initiative. For additional information, go to https://www.rd.usda.gov