People in Vermont’s rural communities don’t always have adequate access to basic health care services because of a shortage of medical professionals in their area and the distance to the nearest medical clinic. Telehealth could help bridge this gap, but too many people in rural communities don’t have the technology that’s needed to make this a reliable option.

Now a partnership made up of experts from the University of Vermont’s Medical Center, College of Nursing and Health Sciences, and Larner College of Medicine, along with the Vermont Library Association and several local libraries throughout the state, is exploring the potential of offering telehealth services delivered through Vermont’s rural libraries. The project is called VITAL-VT, or “Virtual Integration for Telehealth Access through Libraries in Vermont.”

“We’re looking to find any way to make any of our community members in Vermont get access to care—easier, better, quicker,” says Roz King, M.S.N., RN, CNL, chief of research for emergency medicine at the Larner College of Medicine. “So we’re exploring 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.”

Read more about the VITAL-VT project at the Leahy Institute for Rural Partnerships