TTUHSC asking Texas legislators for $6.75 Million to fund telehealth

LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) - The Texas Tech Health Sciences Center took 30 faculty, students, and scientists to the Texas capital to speak to Texas legislators about their top legislative priorities for this session, primarily, expanding telehealth care in rural communities, specifically throughout the 108 Texas counties that TTUHSC serves.

Telehealth care allows patients to visit with a healthcare provider in the comfort of their home or office, eliminating issues of anxiety, transportation, and spreading illnesses.

We spoke with TTUHSC President, Dr. Lori Rice-Spearman, on Thursday.

She says the Institute for Telehealth Technology and Innovation will focus on three pillars:

Access to care: “Increased collaboration with healthcare and hospital partners in our region to expand specialty care and chronic disease management in a predominately rural service area.”

“Work with our communities, go in and ask them what do they need? How can we continue to grow your access?”

Research: “Strengthen research component to analyze and examine clinical efficacy and healthcare outcomes.”

“Evidence-based research on telehealth and digital health and if it’s appropriate for treatment of certain diseases and if it’s not.”

Finally, Academics: “Ensuring the next generation of our health care workforce are trained in telemedicine and skilled in utilizing biomedical technology in care delivery.”

“By continuing to grow this technology, we feel like this will help lessen the gap that we have in healthcare disparities out here in West Texas,” Lori Rice-Spearman said.

Dr. Rice-Spearman says West Texans are dying at a much higher rate than Texans on the east side of the state, and have some of the worst access to healthcare in the state.

This is due to West Texas having some of the worst access to healthcare in Texas, Rice-Spearman says their goal is to change this during this with the Institute for Telehealth Technology and Innovation.

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