The University of Mississippi Medical Center's Center for Telehealth has helped Mississippians, especially those in rural areas, connect with doctors throughout the coronavirus pandemic. Vice-Chancellor Dr. LouAnn Woodward says on a normal year, the center will have around 20,000 virtual doctor visits. But last year, she says that grew to more than 130,000.
“We’re expanding the program so that it includes patients with hypertension, patients with heart failure, and very soon patients with asthma. So it allows us to extend our reach in a different way and in a way that is more convenient to the patient. It’s better for patients who have challenges with travel and those sorts of things.”
The center received $1 million in federal funding last year from the FCC's COVID-19 telehealth program. The funding helped to purchase tablets and other take-home electronics so patients can monitor their health and keep in touch with physicians.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and Mississippi U.S. Senator Roger Wicker toured the telehealth facility last week. Chairman Carr says Senator Wicker was an early advocate for telehealth at the start of the pandemic. And Carr says the next step is to expand rural broadband access.
“Because all of this is meaningless if you get home and you don’t have a high-speed connection at home. So Senator Wicker has been on us at the FCC to make sure that we are prioritizing rural connectivity. We’ve got to make sure that every single community has a fair shot at a next-gen connection, not just our country’s biggest cities.”
Carr says an upcoming round of funding will help connect 220 thousand rural homes in Mississippi to the internet, and the Medical Center will be awarded more than $2 million for telehealth.
