The United Health Foundation https://www.unitedhealthgroup.com has established a new partnership with the Morehouse School of Medicine’s (MSM) https://www.msm.edu “National Center for Primary Care”, to examine how digital tools can be leveraged to support underserved and rural communities in four Southeastern states.
The partnership is funded through a three year $1.1 million grant to support scientific research to examine how to make digital health technology more accessible and useful for people living in rural communities in Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
The goal is to:
- Improve the understanding of rural and underserved residents and their access to digital programs through their providers
- Confirm that digital tools such as EHRs, telemedicine, and wearables can help to address the health disparities residents face
- Develop an action plan to improve access to digital tools for the rural communities
Across the four Southeastern states, MSM researchers at the “National Center for Primary Care” will hold focus groups and conduct individual interviews with local healthcare providers, survey hundreds of health professionals, and examine Medicaid claims data within each state.
Previously, MSM and the UnitedHealth Group received a grant from the United Health Foundation to help build health systems and technology for a local clinic as part of UnitedHealth Group’s partnership with the Atlanta University Center Consortium https://www.aucenter.edu along with three other historically black universities. The focus for the funding was on educating the next generation of health analytics workers.