It was during the early days of the pandemic that it really became obvious how important virtual health care, commonly known as telehealth, was becoming. And Carle Health recently received a grant of 544-thousand dollars to improve access to telemedicine in rural areas. Carle Director of Virtual Health Julie Edwards says this particular grant was for a specific area, but there’s no doubt that even more downstate Carle facilities will be able to expand even more.
Audio PlayerAUDIO: Right now, we, as part of our just overall Carle Health overall strategy planning, pursued a grant which comes out of the USDA’s rural development office, to expand the services that we have at our location in Olney. However, the USDA grants, they have a limitation for being for rural areas, but it can be for any rural area in Illinois.
Edwards says that means future grants could be improving Carle’s telehealth capabilities and equipment in other rural service areas, such as their Regional Health Center in Hoopeston.
Audio PlayerAUDIO: We do have some tele-medicine capability at our Hoopeston location right now, and at one of our Danville locations, which actually is designated as a rural health clinic. So patients can actually request to see if the service they are looking for can be done at those locations.
Edwards says they are definitely planning to pursue additional grant and philanthropic opportunities for even more telemedicine services throughout rural locations in Illinois.
