PORTLAND, Maine - Four Maine school districts and a provider of rural health care are sharing more in $1.6 million in federal funding to expand access to rural broadband and telemedicine.
The four school districts will use their U.S. Department of Agriculture money to purchase video conferencing equipment. The almost $400,000 that MaineHealth has been awarded will be used to install telehealth videoconferencing carts at six rural medical clinics and at three home health agency sites.
The project also involves expanding the infrastructure for telehealth activity. Tom Winchell, director of telehealth at MaineHealth, says the medical grade mobile carts will include a monitor, a commercial grade camera and microphone and speaker attachments.
"It will have the ability, through a computer that will be included, to not only conduct video conferencing and telehealth interaction, but to access the electronic records or other files or documentation that will be located where ever those resources might be stored.
Winchell says there are a number of reasons why the health care delivery through distance technologies is expanding in rural Maine. Among these are long travel distances, the lack of specialty providers, an increasingly aging population and the relatively poor health of residents in rural communities.