The United States spends more on healthcare than any other country in the world, but was ranked as the 37th best health system by the World Health Organization in 2000. This combined with the current climate of economic uncertainty has led to much public discussion about healthcare issues in the United States and how to reform the current system. The amount the US spends each year sadly does not correlate with improved health outcomes. The Sierra Institute for Community and Environment has been tracking these conversations because we have been working to improve local healthcare through projects designed to evaluate, understand, and improve the Plumas County healthcare system for over five years now. And, as we all know, healthcare reform at the national level affects every one of us at the local level.
About this Blog:
Navigating the healthcare system can be a scary prospect, but it can be even worse when financial constraints, lack of insurance, geographic or language barriers are involved. I hope to create a dialogue with community members, partners, and other interested parties about rural community-based health work in Plumas County. Additionally, I would like to foster a discussion of public health and health care policy from a rural community perspective. In future posts, I look to discuss further our community-based work in Plumas County, such as what is telemedicine and telehealth? How can health reform in Congress affect us in Plumas County? I look forward to an open exchange of ideas and information and hope to involve many voices in this discussion.
About Sierra Institute’s Health and Wellbeing Work:
Changing demographics, rising poverty rates, learning difficulties among school-age children, and truancy among high school students all create a significant burden for overstretched schools and represent a major community health challenge in Plumas County. The Sierra Institute’s current work includes a Networked School-Based Telehealth Project that is a program implementing pilot projects in Plumas County schools to explore how networked and coordinated health services can most effectively meet identified health care needs, improve student performance, and improve quality of life. A major goal of the project is to reduce health disparities in Plumas County by improving access to the health system for residents. With partners, we are working on local health access issues in our communities. In addition, we work to improve language access capabilities for the Limited English Proficient (LEP) population.
Working with our partners, we have identified core activities for the project involving:
- Creating networks of health and human services providers to improve service delivery, coordination of care, and quality of care;
- Using telemedicine to increase the number of children who are screened and provided services for disruptive behaviors, chronic diseases, such as asthma and diabetes, and other health issues;
- Using telemedicine to connect school nurses to schools when they cannot be on-site;
- Using telecommunication technology to bring additional health education to the schools;
- Helping children connect to healthcare providers in the community and out of the area when transportation and other barriers exist.
About Telehealth and Telemedicine according to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services:
Telehealth: The use of telecommunications and information technology to provide access to health assessment, diagnosis, intervention, consultation, supervision and information across distance.
Telemedicine: The use of medical information exchanged from one site to another via electronic communications to improve a patient’s health. Telemedicine is viewed as a cost-effective alternative to the more traditional face-to-face way of providing medical care.
