Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has announced more then $30 million in grants for some 100 distance learning and telemedicine projects around the country, including telehealth programs serving Alaska’s remote tribal villages and the development of a telemedicine-based exam room on a ship serving Maine’s island communities.
"This program delivers educational and medical opportunities that are urgently needed in remote, rural areas," Vilsack said in the Dec. 8 announcement of the grants, provided through the USDA Distance Learning and Telemedicine (DLT) Program. "President (Barack) Obama has said that no matter where you live in America, you should have access to quality educational opportunities. Rural Americans deserve the same opportunities for education and medical care as metropolitan-area residents, and these funds will make that happen."
Among the recipients is the Maine Sea Coast Mission in Bar Harbor, whose telemedicine program serves the islands of Frenchboro, Matinicus, Swan’s Island and Isle au Haut. The society is receiving about $108,000 to install video equipment in its exam room aboard the Sunbeam V, a 75-foot boat launched in 1995 that makes regular trips to the islands and serves as an icebreaker, mobile medical clinic and meeting place for their year-round residents.
Other recipients include Loring Hospital in Sac City, Iowa, which will use almost $263,000 in grant money to connect its emergency room and outpatient and inpatient centers through videoconferencing feeds to local schools and nursing homes; Sanford Health in South Dakota, which will use $489,000 in grant money to equip 39 rural clinics in North and South Dakota and Minnesota with telehealth tools; and the Missouri-based Mercy Health System, which will use about $500,000 in grant money to connect St. John’s Mercy Medical Center to 12 rural hospitals in Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas and Oklahoma.
In all, 34 states and one territory – the Northern Mariana Islands – will receive grants for healthcare end education projects.
