Rural Health IT Program Expands

A telemedicine project in rural Mississippi is receiving $700,000 in federal grant money to help link five rural hospitals with critical-care experts at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

The Delta Electronic Intensive Care Unit Network will link intensive-care units at the rural Mississippi Delta Hospitals with the critical-care center at the university medical center, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The initiative is one of 10 health care projects in six states funded by the Delta Health Care Services Grant Program under USDA's rural development program established under the 2008 Farm Bill.

"These projects can provide care to patients currently receiving no care at all and hopefully reduce the incidence of stroke, mental illness, and other health disorders in rural regions," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

Three other telehealth projects are among those receiving rural development funding:

• $233,000 to Kentucky's Murray State University for infrastructure to link five rural critical-access hospitals, two small hospitals and an acute-care hospital in western Kentucky with the Kentucky Telehealth Network. The grant will also provide training for medical students and staff in rural hospitals.
• $364,000 for the Louisiana Nursing Home Telehealth Project, which will allow specialists in cardiology, pulmonology, nephrology, oncology and wound care to examine patients at five rural nursing homes remotely.
• $62,870 to Franklin Parish Hospital for a telemental health program for two impoverished parishes in northeast Louisiana. The program will provide psychiatric counseling through video conferences, as well as pre-hospitalization assessment, post-hospital follow-up care, outpatient visits and medication management.