Lubbock-based Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center received a nearly $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to increase its telemedicine services in rural areas of the state, KVIA, an ABC affiliate, reports.
In February, the university launched telemedicine services to provide care for trauma patients in rural areas before the individuals could be transported to a tertiary trauma center at Amarillo-based Northwest Texas Hospital.
Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Chief Health Informatics Officer Ogechika Alozie, MD, said the grant will help support telemedicine technology on mobile platforms, according to the report.
"How we engage in healthcare and how we engage in technology is very mobile," Dr. Alozie told KVIA. "It should be mobile. It should be personal, it should be portable and that is really what we are going to focus on. We are going to work with the USDA and our outlying sites to provide access to our physicians and our clinicians in a way that suits them best."