Overcoming Perinatal Healthcare Disparity and Transport Program

PURPOSE: Inadequate access to care and geographic location remains the biggest factor that adds to the healthcare disparity in our state. 17 out of 55 counties have no birth facilities or prenatal care around their borders. Centers with limited number of births lack experience and resources in taking care of sick infants. To overcome such barriers, a connect-to-care via telemedicine was established as a pilot project in 14 perinatal care facilities in our state. Almost 1/3rd of infants admitted in our level IV NICU are outborn, which comprises 20% of total VLBW infants admitted to our NICU. Our transport program integrated telemedicine in delivering care for emergent and non-emergent transport requests. However this technology remained under-utilized. We hypothesized that inadequate training and education on its benefits are the major barriers for under-utilization of this technology. Our outreach team aimed to provide training on the use and benefits of telemedicine in...