Rural Telehealth in Public Libraries

With reduced access to care in rural areas, many patients are turning to telehealth for consultations or follow-up appointments. In lieu of long travel times, patients can connect with providers online. Unfortunately the lack of computer hardware and high speed internet access limits the ability of patients to use video telehealth, which in turn limits the providers’ ability to diagnose and treat them. Our goal is to provide hardware and information resources to a rural library to support telehealth appointments. Additionally, we will produce a video about the telehealth experience so that learners and faculty can learn more about providing telehealth services to rural patients.