MaineHealth wins $1M grant to expand rural care via telehealth, as tech trend continues

FIle Photo / jeff scher MaineHealth will receive a federal grant of $1 million to expand rural access to care via telehealth. In this 2015 photo, Maine Medical Center technician Adam Pray wheels a telehealth cart into an exam room.

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By Staff

MaineHealth, the state’s largest health care system, will receive $1 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to expand access to medical care in rural parts of the state via telehealth technology.

The Rural Development Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grant will fund telehealth carts to help provide "eConsults" for clinicians across MaineHealth's rural hospitals and practices, according to a news release Wednesday. Rural clinicians will use the equipment to connect with specialists, using a "toolkit" that provides videoconferencing, document and co-management of care.

The telehealth initiative will also help increase access to specialized cardiology care from Maine Medical Center, MaineHealth’s 637-bed flagship hospital in Portland. The result, according to the release, will be drastic reductions in travel time for clinicians and in waiting time for patients in rural parts of Cumberland, York, Lincoln, Oxford, Franklin, Knox, Waldo, Androscoggin, Kennebec and Somerset counties.

The MaineHealth grant is one of 116 nationwide, totaling $72 million in awards to assist 12 million rural U.S. residents.

“Increasing access to telemedicine and distance learning is critical to building healthier and more resilient rural communities,” said U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue in the release. “USDA is committed to being a strong partner to rural communities because when rural America thrives, all of America thrives.”

As Mainebiz reported last month, the popularity of telehealth has soared as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The trend is strong in Maine and across the country.

A report by consulting group McKinsey & Co. published in May found that the percentage of U.S. consumers using telehealth climbed from 11% in 2019 to 46% when the report came out, with providers reporting 50 to 175 times the number of telehealth visits than pre-COVID.