KALAMAZOO, MI (WKZO AM/FM) – The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) recently presented WMed with a $15,000 AAMC
Telehealth Equity Catalyst (TEC) Award for its project, titled “Telehealth Access Initiative for Youth Who Are Unhoused and Underhoused in Kalamazoo, Michigan.”
The TEC Awards were launched as part of the AAMC’s efforts to support members’ work to advance telehealth equity.
This year, AAMC funded 13 programs that can serve as models for other institutions to address and mitigate the barriers to care associated with telehealth
care, particularly for communities that are under-resourced with limited access to health care services.
WMed will use the $15,000 award in collaboration with Street Medicine Kalamazoo to provide developmental-behavioral consultations via telehealth to families that are unhoused or underhoused in the year-long program. The project seeks to provide care where the patients are so they can get the
care they need rather than requiring them to go into medical spaces, said Lisa Graves, MD, a professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine, a family medicine physician and the project’s principal investigator.
“This grant is designed to try and meet the needs of the unhoused and to start creating a relationship that makes our providers and clinic a safe space for them. Then when someone needs to be seen in person, they will have an established relationship with someone who understands,” said Graves.
She went onto say the funds will cover providers’ time and will ensure WMed has the necessary video and computer equipment to conduct the telehealth visits. She said she plans to reach out to parents in the Kalamazoo community who have been unhoused to gather feedback about the additional support they would like to see from area healthcare providers.
Content provided by: WMed Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine
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