University of Alabama at Birmingham is using a $200,000 grant awarded by the Appalachian Regional Commission to develop telehealth sites at two remote Alabama hospitals.
The funding will support the addition of three patient rooms equipped to accommodate telehealth visits at both Centreville, Ala.-based Bibb Medical Center and North Alabama Medical Center in Florence.
"This will create a telehealth hub for high-volume sites and will enable providers based in Birmingham to see multiple patients on the same day, even if the patients are not in the same clinic," said Eric Wallace, MD, medical director of UAB's telehealth program, according to the news release. "While a [physician] is seeing one patient, another patient will be prepped by a nurse and ready to go once the previous appointment is over."
The grant will also provide the necessary funds to train two ultrasound technologists at the two hospitals, which will allow UAB's maternal-fetal medicine team to virtually examine high-risk patients remotely and see the results of their ultrasounds.
Dr. Wallace said he hopes the telehealth-equipped rooms will be available for patients by the end of 2019, according to the report.