King Quoted in Community Networks Article on Community-Centered Telehealth Model
Roz King, M.S.N., RN, CNL, an emergency department nurse, manager of the Research in Emergency Medicine Program, and director of the Emergency Medicine Research Associate Program at the Larner College of Medicine, was quoted in a Community Networks article about efforts by a coalition of Vermont health care leaders, librarians, and state broadband officials to create a scalable, community-centered telehealth model.
VITAL VT (Virtual Integration for Telehealth Access through Libraries in Vermont) is an exploratory effort being launched with a $10,000 grant from the Leahy Institute For Rural Partnerships, working in collaboration with the University of Vermont Medical Center and the Vermont Library Association. The aim is to leverage the state’s unprecedented deployment of community-owned fiber networks and create a scalable, community-centered telehealth model.
“We’re really looking to find any way to make any of our community members in Vermont get access to care—easier, better, quicker. So we’re wondering if telehealth (hubs) might be the right answer for that, if we’re able to put it right in people’s libraries, right in their own towns,” King told local CBS affiliate WCAX.
King said what spurred the initiative was a talk given by one of UVM’s medical students who noted how Vermont was beginning to see “health care deserts where in some rural counties PCPs were aging out and no one was there to provide health care (services).”
Still, even as Vermont is committed to making telehealth widely available across the state, there’s crucial legislative work that will be required to ensure that health care providers and residents can maximize its potential.
“There’s so much that is still a gray area around regulations that were loosened around the pandemic” King said—rules that would need to be expanded and made permanent to pave the way for insurers and especially Medicare to pay for telehealth appointments.