Medical College of Georgia

Grant to Enhance Telemedicine Service in Southeast Georgia

Southeast Georgia will have greater access to health care via telemedicine, thanks to a three-year federal grant.

The 11-county area served by the grant has an acute shortage of health care professionals, particularly specialists.

The Office for the Advancement of Telehealth grant was awarded to Southeast Telehealth Partners consortium, established to improve rural access to health care via telemedicine. The grant will fund a third telemedicine site in the region, personnel to assist with telemedicine-related activities, equipment, T-1 phone line charges and physician consultations for indigent patients.

The grant funds are awarded as part of a national program, the Rural Telemedicine Grant program, administered by the federal Office for the Advancement of Telehealth, Health Resources and Service Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The grant funds are awarded as part of a national program, the Rural Telemedicine Grant program, administered by the federal Office for the Advancement of Telehealth, Health Resources and Service Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Telemedicine has thrived in certain parts of the 11-county area. Ware County Health Department, in the center of the region, joined the Georgia Statewide Telemedicine Program in 1994 and is now its most active telemedicine site. Pediatric allergy/immunology, pulmonology, genetics, neurology, psychiatry and adult sickle cell clinics treat patients regularly, some weekly.

But the 189,000-resident region has only one cardiologist, dermatologist and neurologist, and only a few radiologists, ophthalmologists and ear, nose and throat specialists. While there are eight psychiatrists, none specialize in child psychiatry. Many other specialty services are simply not available.

Residents, therefore, face long drives to tertiary-care facilities in larger cities, such as Jacksonville, Fla., some 78 miles from Waycross. All other such facilities, in Savannah, Macon, Augusta, and Atlanta, are more than 100 miles away.

Its rural location hinders the region from drawing visiting specialists. Poverty and underinsurance throughout the area also discourage specialists from visiting or opening practices there.

It is not surprising that with such poor access to care, mortality rates for causes of death in this region are significantly higher than national and state rates. The rate of death from heart disease alone is more than 50 percent higher than the national rate. The rate of death from cancer is 12 percent higher than the national rate and about 30 percent higher than the Georgia rate.

The project funded by the OAT grant will increase telemedicine services at participating facilities to give residents access to specialty care in their home communities. Currently, six specialties are being provided to parts of the area via telemedicine: pediatric neurology, pediatric pulmonology, pediatric allergy/immunology, colposcopy, tuberculosis care and child and adolescent psychiatry.

These services will also be expanded to include MR/dual diagnosis, HIV/AIDS, perinatal services, early intervention discharge planning, dermatology, adult sickle cell, diabetes, physiatry and cardiology care. Hospice bereavement counseling will be provided at one site, though this service will not be supported by the grant.

Paula Guy, a registered nurse who is Southeast Telehealth Partners’ clinical director and the onsite manager for the project, looks forward to increased utilization of the local telemedicine sites. "The biggest benefit is that the people who have to travel so far to get the specialty services [will] be able to be closer to home. I’m particularly excited about sonograms for high-risk pregnancies." Currently, there are no specialized obstetricians in the area, and patients must travel to Savannah or Augusta for care.

"I’m also excited about educating the doctors about what’s available, what they can access through telemedicine," says Ms. Guy. Rural health care providers have a critical role to play in advancing the use of telemedicine services.

Three facilities, located in the three largest cities in the project area, will have telemedicine systems. Two, Ware County Health Department in Waycross and Wayne Memorial Hospital in Jesup, are already participating as sites in the Georgia Statewide Telemedicine Program. The third site, Coffee Regional Medical Center in Douglas, is having a telemedicine system installed.

In addition to these three sites, project participants include Satilla Community Service Board, Waycross; The Children’s Initiative, Waycross; Okefenokee-Satilla Regional Family Practice Residency, Waycross; and the Medical College of Georgia Telemedicine Center, Augusta. All seven are members of Southeast Telehealth Partners.

Dr. Ted Holloway, director of the Southeast Health Unit, conceived the idea for Southeast Telehealth Partners in 1999. After the association was established, a private consultant, Alan Silver of Silver Business Development, Inc., a Savannah-based healthcare consulting firm, was contracted to help write the grant. The process involved lengthy research and planning, during which marketing strategies and strategies for sustaining telemedicine activity and funding after the grant funding ends evolved.

The Southeast Telehealth Partners network consists of community health centers that serve patients regardless of their ability to pay for care. Thus, the grant project will be of particular benefit to low-income patients and those without insurance.

 Additional information can be found on the Health Resources and Services Administration Web site, www.hrsa.gov.

Note:  The OAT grant of $273,846 represents 39 percent of the Southeast Telehealth Partners annual budget of $699,162. Sixty-one percent of the budget ($425,316) was raised from non-Federal sources.

Copyright 2002
Medical College of Georgia Telemedicine Center