The U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded a $274,092 grant to Portland-based MaineHealth — an integrated healthcare delivery network — that will fund a three-year project to expand rural telehealth capabilities.
The grant was part of the Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grant Program and will zero in on enhancing communication between emergency departments and local emergency medical services in rural areas, providing neonatal intensive care unit support, and transferring decision support for post-discharge care to the home.
Specifically, MaineHealth will use the grant to launch telehealth workstations at six of its affiliated hospital EDs, in addition to funding telehealth equipment, like tablets, for local EMS services to enhance communication between ambulances and EDs. MaineHealth will also invest in telehealth support tools that will better inform decision making, and MaineHealth Care at Home will deploy tablets, smart phones, associated software and devices as part of its home health services.
"We are pleased to continue to build on our telehealth framework with these three important initiatives that serve rural communities across our service area," MaineHealth CMO Joan Boomsma said in a press release. "Telehealth leverages MaineHealth's investment in shared [EHR] technology to facilitate information flow across our health system."
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