Rural Americans can face driving one or more hours for medical care. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) indicates that telehealth—embedded in culturally appropriate practice—is effective at treating and managing health conditions ranging from depression to hypertension. For rural communities lacking reliable access to broadband internet, Telehealth Access Points (TAP) fill a need not otherwise met.
Extension professionals can play an important role in empowering people to use these resources to improve their quality of life. See the National Digital Education Extension Team’s Digital Access Continuum.
Idaho Commission for Libraries (ICfL) partnered with the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare to place 40 telehealth sites in Idaho public libraries. A tech-enabled privacy pod was recently unveiled at the Mountain Home Public Library in Elmore County, where only 77% of the population has access to internet speeds of at least 25/3 Mbps according to the Access Broadband Dashboard by the U.S. Census Bureau and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).
An American Connection Corps (ACC) AmeriCorps member is serving as a digital navigator at the library for a second term with University of Idaho Extension’s Digital Economy Program through the financial support of Idaho Commission for Libraries. The digital navigator teaches digital skills classes and offers one-to-one tech help throughout Elmore County, and she assisted over 700 participants in 2024. She also helps community members use the telehealth privacy pod, which is named the Wakelee Room in memory of local pediatrician, Dr. Annis Wakelee Bledsoe.
The Wakelee room is the only TAP within Elmore County as reported by the Northwest Telehealth Resource Center. Attendees at the ribbon-cutting ceremony included members of the Library Board, City Council, family members of Dr. Bledsoe, representatives from St. Luke’s Foundation, and staff from St. Luke’s and St. Alphonsus hospitals.
Accessing specialized healthcare can be especially hard in rural areas. According to Get Healthy Idaho, Idaho ranks 44th out of the 50 states in population density—with 35 out of 44 of Idaho’s counties being rural and of which 16 are remote due to having less than six people per mile. Due to varying social determinants of health (SDOH) in Idaho counties, there can be as much as a 10-year life expectancy difference. Furthermore, Idaho is ranked 50th for available active physicians according to the Rural Health & Primary Care Brief released by the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare Division of Public Health.
With scarce resources in rural America, telehealth can reduce health disparities, and broadband internet access is a super determinant of health. An extended model of SDOH demonstrates how broadband internet access influences and affects the relationships amongst other SDOH. More information can be found on this topic on the FCC’s website.
Co-Written by:
Kathryn Leach, Southwest Idaho Instructional Coordinator
Alyssa Granatir, AmeriCorps Digital Navigator
Citations:
Benda, N. C., Veinot, T. C., Sieck, C. J., & Ancker, J. S. (2020). Broadband internet access is a social determinant of health! American Journal of Public Health, 110(8), 1123–1125. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2020.305784
Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. (n.d.). Overview of Idaho. Get Healthy Idaho. https://www.gethealthy.dhw.ida...ov/overview-of-idaho
Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. (2023, January). Idaho Division of Public Health Bureau of Rural Health & Primary Care Brief. https://publicdocuments.dhw.id...C-DOCUMENTS&cr=1
Northwest Regional Telehealth Resource Center. (n.d.). Find Telehealth [map]. https://findtelehealth.nrtrc.org/map
Turcios, Y. (2023, March 22). Digital Access: A Super Determinant of Health. SAMHSA. https://www.samhsa.gov/blog/di...r-determinant-health
U.S. Census Bureau and National Telecommunications and Information Administration. (n.d.). ACCESS BROADBAND Dashboard. https://mtgis-portal.geo.censu...4150be143b9447ed5074
Comments (0)