Telehealth should target Latinos more

Latinos not targeted enough by telehealth programs
The Latino Journal E-News, September 21, 2009

At a time when healthcare is at the top of national debate, few are discussing the power of telehealth and how this could drive medical bills down. So what is telehealth and how is it used?

Telehealth is the use of telecommunications to provide a variety of health services, especially to rural areas of the world. The services include clinical healthcare, patient and professional-related education, and general health administration. The technologies used in telehealth include: videoconferencing, the Internet, store and forward imaging, streaming media, and terrestrial and wireless communications. While new applications are increasingly found for using these technologies, significant barriers remain to making these technologies an integral part of daily health care practice.

In the 2006-2007 fiscal year, numerous grants were awarded by the Office for the Advancement of Telehealth (OAT), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to universities, clinics and hospitals implementing telehealth programs. Although there were programs in every state that received an award, not all programs served more than 20 percent of Latinos within their service area. This was especially alarming for California and Texas, where only two and three programs respectively, serviced more than 20 percent Latinos within their service areas. Both states have Latino populations that are quickly approaching 40 percent and nearly half living in rural areas.

The following are the number of programs by state that served more than 20 percent Latinos according to OAT:

Arizona - 3
Califiornia - 2
Colorado - 1
District of Columbia - 1
Florida - 1
Georgia - 2
Idaho - 1
Indiana - 1
Kansas - 2
Kentucky - 1
Massachusetts - 1
Montana - 1
New Jersey - 2
New Mexico - 2
New York - 4
Ohio - 3
Oklahoma - 2
Pennsylvania - 5
Rhode Island - 1
South Carolina - 2
Tennessee - 2
Texas - 3
Utah - 3
Virginia - 1
Washington - 1
Wyoming - 1

For more information about OAT grants, visit their website at http://www.hrsa.gov/grants.