PHILIPS – PO2016

Billy U. Philips, Jr., PhD, MPH Executive Vice President and Director F. Marie Hall Institute for Rural and Community Health Professor, Family & Community Medicine

F. Marie Hall Institute for Rural and Community Health

Why telemedicine in West Texas? § Distance isn’t a measurement in West Texas…. It’s a fact of life § Distance shouldn’t be an obstacle to access quality health care services § Few primary doctors – fewer specialists § Improving access to health care services addresses dispariCes § Future needs to shiD to public health and prevenCon § Goal: “healthy people seen closest to home”

F. Marie Hall Institute for Rural and Community Health

Access to Care: Hospitals: 0 (closest is 88 miles away) Rural Clinics: 1 Physicians: 5 (raCo of 1,564 persons : 1 physician) Nurses: 9 (Total of all LVNs, RNs, and APRNs– raCo of 867:1) P.A.s: 1

Presidio County, Texas PopulaCon: 7,818

El Paso to Lubbock: 343 mi. / 5.5 hrs.

Presidio to Lubbock: 368 mi. / 5.75 hrs.

F. Marie Hall Institute for Rural and Community Health

F. Marie Hall Institute for Rural and Community Health

If we can dream it – We can do it!

F. Marie Hall Institute for Rural and Community Health

• Telemedicine should be value-added compared to in-person care.

• Telemedicine should be safe and secure.

• Telemedicine should be held to a standard of competency educaCon in order to have a standard of competency of care.

• Telemedicine should not be regulated because it is new and edgy but to preserve both.

F. Marie Hall Institute for Rural and Community Health