One nurse connects Fort Davis patients to specialists online
The Davis Mountain Clinic in Fort Davis, Texas, operates from a renovated shipping container. The clinic has no windows, no large waiting room, and no teams of physicians and nurses waiting on patients. One nurse, Carol Brewer, staffs the clinic and connects patients to psychologists and physicians online.
“It saves them time and the expense of traveling,” Brewer said. “They don’t have to travel 30 miles to the closest clinic, or get an appointment two weeks later. They are more likely to drop in, as opposed to delaying care.”
Fort Davis has fewer than 900 residents. Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and Texas A&M University worked together to renovate the shipping container and establish the telehealth clinic, according to an Associated Press report.
A lack of funding and the struggle to expand broadband into rural communities has pushed some healthcare providers to develop new ways of bringing healthcare services to the areas that need them, the report states.
Brewer’s telehealth clinic is one example of how the two organizations worked together to deliver healthcare services to rural Texas, the report says. The report adds that telehealth services are set to expand in rural Texas clinics.