MaineHealth https://mainehealth.org has been awarded a five year $12.8 million grant from the Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) within the National Institute of General Medical Sciences https://nigms.nih.gov.
The funding will be used by the Maine Medical Center Research Institute (MMCRI) to support clinical research aimed at reducing rural health disparities in acute care settings. The funding will develop a statewide research and a care network to address the barriers associated with limited resources, expertise, and access in rural areas.
The research will begin with clinical studies to:
- Examine whether MaineHealth can improve rural patient outcomes after cardiac arrest by creating a standard best practice protocol for care
- Study whether giving patients the antibiotic ceftriaxone after cardiac arrest will help improve outcomes after resuscitation
- Study how the types of white blood cells patients have in their bloodstream after cardiac arrest may impact their recovery
- Study how telemedicine research can support rural hospitals in the rapid recognition of newborns who need treatment with therapeutic hypothermia to protect the brain
“The grant funding will not only help establish the infrastructure necessary to better serve rural communities, it will also support MaineHealth’s engagement with community members to understand their needs and how best to focus future research” said, Doug Sawyer, MD, PhD, Chief Academic Officer of the Maine Medical Center and MaineHealth and Principal Investigator for the grant.
In another grant award, the University of Arkansas for Medical Science’s (UAMS) Rural Telehealth Evaluation Center https://telehealthresourcecenter.org received $1.5 million from HRSA’s Federal Office of Rural Health Policy https://www.hrsa.gov/rural/rural-health. The Rural Telehealth Evaluation Center is part of the UAMS Institute for Digital Health & Innovation https://idhi.uams.edu
The funding will be used to evaluate the performance of the Telehealth Broadband Pilot Program in preventing, preparing for and responding to COVID-19. The funding will enable researchers to evaluate four counties in separate regions in the U.S..
“UAMS has been a leader in digital health for many years, and we are excited to use that experience to determine what methods and technologies can best be used to help rural providers fight the COVID-19 pandemic. This grant will provide much needed data and analyses to advance digital health in rural America” said, Joseph Sanford, MD. Director of the UAMS Institute for Digital Health & Innovation.