USDA’s Distance Learning and Telemedicine (DLT grant program is providing $72 million for 116 projects to help healthcare and education institutions buy the equipment and software necessary to deploy needed services to residents in rural communities. These investments will benefit more than 12 million residents.
For example, the Delta Health Center, Inc. https://deltahealthcenter.org received $1,000,000 to provide access to the full range of healthcare services via telemedicine visits with patients throughout the service area from 10 Hub/End User sites.
Avera Health https://www.avera.org received $985,399 to provide telemedicine software and equipment to ensure equitable healthcare access at rural sparsely staffed medical facilities in a seven state 66 county areas in the Upper Midwest through the Emergency Telemedicine Project.
In Kentucky, Bluegrass Care Navigators https://www.bgcarenav.org will use a $468,483 grant to establish a regional telemedicine network with a hub site at their headquarters in Lexington. Three other hub sites will help seriously and terminally ill patients across 16 counties in southeastern Kentucky. The hubs will have designated virtual conference rooms to facilitate education and professional development for clinicians.
Some of the other grant recipients include University of Georgia Research Foundation ($866,030), Iowa Primary Care Association Inc ($574,796), HSHS St. John’s Hospital in Illinois, ($977,429), Grace Community Health Center Inc. in Kentucky, ($790,400), MaineHealth ($999,573), Greenwood Leflore Hospital in Mississippi ($996,871), North Carolina Department of Corrections, ($995,129), and the Palacios Community Medical Center ($812,500) in Texas.
Go to https://rd.usda.gov/sites/default/files/USDARD_DLT_CHART10072020.pdf for the complete list of recipients.
The site https://rd.usda.gov/programs-services/distance-learning-telemedicine-grants has information on the Distance Learning and Telemedicine Program.