Morehouse School of Medicine receives grant to boost telemedicine
ATLANTA - The Morehouse School of Medicine will soon be able to help even more patients through virtual appointments.
The school received a $1.1 million grant from the Truist Foundation to boost its telemedicine capabilities.
"Last year, between February and March, we saw a 700 percent increase in telemedicine cases. Between March and April, we saw a 212 percent increase," said Dr. Bennie Harris, Senior Vice President of Institutional Advance at the Morehouse School of Medicine.
Nationally, there was a 154 percent increase in virtual appointments in the last week of March 2020, compared to the same time in 2019, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dr. Harris said virtual doctor's appointments aren't a new tool in healthcare, but it's something that's here to stay.
"People are getting much more comfortable with that. People are getting much more comfortable because they don't want to go out in a pandemic," Dr. Harris said.
To keep up with the demand, the school reached out to the Truist Foundation, resulting in the grant which was announced Tuesday.
"The money will go to our platform, expanding the platform, technological expansion," Dr. Harris said. "There is innovation that needs to take place. We're saying how do we improve that, how do we make it even clearer than a Zoom call, how do we protect privacy. Those dollars will invest in that."
Virtual appointments eliminate travel time and cut down on wait time he said telemedicine does much more than just improve convenience.
"[It helps] serve those at-risk populations. Those populations, particularly in the African American communities and communities of color and getting more access to those populations. Telemedicine affords us those opportunities, he said.
Morehouse Healthcare, the clinical side of the school, has offered telehealth since 2018 with the goal of reaching out to those in underserved areas in the state.
Dr. Harris said this grant will help them continue to serve those who are unable to access healthcare in the traditional way.
Officials with the Morehouse School of Medicine said the grant will allow them to triple their telehealth capacity within two years.
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