MUSC Receives $1.5M Grant to Advance Telehealth Training in Rural Areas

The Medical University of South Carolina's (MUSC) Center for Telehealth has received a $1.5 million grant to bolster healthcare training and job placement in rural communities,

The Health Resources and Services Administration awarded the three-year grant. MUSC will use the funding to establish the South Carolina Rural Telehealth Workforce Pipeline Network. The network aims to create educational opportunities for high school and technical college students to learn about telehealth and gain experience with the virtual care modality in their communities.

The opportunities will include telehealth lectureships for all types of students as well as more in-depth opportunities like internships for health IT students and clinical virtual care programs for nursing students. Further, the network will work to include telehealth in health science curricula in rural areas.  

"This HRSA grant represents an important step in taking the expertise of the Center for Telehealth directly into the communities we serve, creating the robust connection to truly move the needle on access to care in rural communities while developing long-lasting local partnerships," said James McElligott, MD, executive medical director of the MUSC Center for Telehealth and grant principal investigator, in the press release. "The Center will grow its education capabilities at a time of great need as unprecedented telehealth volume is transforming health care delivery models."

The network will support statewide collaborations that include the MUSC Regional Health Network, the Florence-Darlington Technical College, The Continuum training and workforce center, Palmetto Care Connections, and the South Carolina Area Health Education Consortium (AHEC).

Initially, the network will focus on pipeline programs in the Williamsburg and Florence counties, as this is where MUSC is building the Black River Medical Center, slated to open in 2023, and where The Continuum and Florence-Darlington Technical College have a presence, the press release notes.

The network plans to expand the successful components of the programs to other technical colleges. It will also integrate the program's successful features into South Carolina AHEC's health careers program. In addition to Williamsburg and Florence counties, the network will focus on expanding telehealth training opportunities in Marion, Lancaster, Chester, and Kershaw counties.

Further, MUSC plans to recruit health IT and associate-level nursing team members from the six counties noted above to the Center for Telehealth's centralized support team.

The COVID-19 pandemic spurred the use of telehealth to new heights. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a 154 percent increase in telehealth visits during the last week of March 2020.

More recent research also shows a spike in telehealth use, particularly during the Omicron variant surge earlier this year. According to data from FAIR Health, national telehealth use jumped 10.2 percent in May, the second consecutive month that telehealth use increased.

Though usage declined slightly in June, healthcare stakeholders continue to view virtual care as a key mode of healthcare delivery.

Of all digital health tools, telehealth and remote patient monitoring tools experienced the most significant increase in provider adoption in the past five years, increasing from 14 percent in 2016 to 80 percent in 2022, a recent survey shows.

Further, Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina announced the launch of an expanded telehealth policy next year covering virtual care services for behavioral health, primary care, and outpatient visits for certain plan members. This decision was made based on a review of telehealth claims data from 2020 onward.