University of Kansas gets grant for rural telemedicine

University of Kansas Medical Center Research Institute will receive part of a $3.9 million grant over three years for providing telemedicine to underserved rural areas.

The grants, which are from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Rural Health Policy, will focus on rural children living in poverty and their families. An estimated 1.5 million children and 4.5 million adults who live in rural areas have income below the poverty line, according to a news release from HHS, and the poverty rate is 20 percent or higher in more than 300 rural counties.

Telemedicine refers to consulting with a doctor or other health care providers through an electronic medium, such as a web chat. Health care providers still are debating the place of telemedicine. One advantage is that it allow patients to consult with a provider who isn’t available locally, but some are concerned that the provider could miss signs that he or she could more easily observe when the patient is in the same room.

Other agencies that will receive part of the grant are Georgia Partnership for Telehealth in Waycross; Oglala Sioux Tribe of Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota; and the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. The news release from HHS didn’t specify how much each entity will receive of the $3.9 million total.

The grants are part of a pilot program, which could be expanded if it meets health goals.

Rural and urban populations had similar life expectancies until the early 1990s, when urban populations started to pull ahead, according to the Disparities National Coordinating Council, which is part of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Urban residents now are expected to live an average of two years longer than rural ones, though both groups can expect to live longer than in previous decades.

Rural and urban women had nearly identical life expectancies, according to data last updated in 2009, but men had significantly different outcomes. Men who lived in urban areas could expect to live 76.2 years, while rural men could expect to live 74.1 years, on average.

The gap is wider for people in poverty and some minority groups. Life expectancies fall faster for people in poverty in rural areas than in urban areas, and Native Americans living in rural areas live an average of 11 fewer years than their urban counterparts.

People in rural areas are more likely to die from unintentional injuries, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, suicide and diabetes than people in urban areas. Some of those differences may be due to higher rates of obesity and smoking, and the relative prevalence of dangerous jobs.