Samsung and two telehealth providers developed a national initiative that will provide grants, technology and physician expertise to rural hospitals in need of telehealth access.
Rural hospitals struggled to pay for telehealth enterprise software designed primarily for large health systems and lacked staff with the expertise or time to take advantage of non-profit, state and federal grant funding for telehealth initiatives, according to a March 1 press release.
Access4Health, created by Samsung and telehealth providers Vitalchat and Equum Medical, aims to change that by doing the following:
- Utilizing data from the HHS database to target hospitals that face shortages in beds and staff.
- Leveraging Equum Medical's remote care to rural hospitals.
- Leveraging Vitalchat's low-cost telehealth software that connects caregivers, patients and families by using existing workflows at rural hospitals.
- Using resources provided by Samsung to help rural hospitals identify eligibility and apply for a wide range of government and non-profit funding programs that target rural health access and health equity.