Advancing Telehealth in Rural Appalachia

Rural LISC worked with practicum student Berenice Cheng at The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to develop a qualitative study of telehealth opportunities in rural Appalachia. It found that healthcare institutions, health systems, community organizations advancing digital inclusion efforts, and telehealth advocates could increase coordination and investments in short and longer-term strategies to advance telehealth.

Defining value-based healthcare in the context of virtual care and prioritizing interventions that will improve outcomes for populations with the most significant health needs could be part of the roadmap forward for rural Appalachia. Investing in high-quality last-mile broadband deployments and providing ongoing device access and digital literacy support, including early digital skill education via Area Health Education Center initiatives, are some examples of promising practices that could boost telehealth service adoption.

As part of our commitment to develop integrated and sector-crossing solutions for digital equity, Rural LISC trained Digital Navigators at Palmetto Care Connections in March 2021 to further their mission of assisting health care providers in connecting to rural and underserved people in South Carolina through telehealth technology training and advocacy. In LISC’s comments to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy on Connected Health, PCC notes that rural health care providers in their network are invested in telehealth, but there is still a significant role for solutions like the Digital Navigator program to support patient adoption.