Lebanon
Vilsack saw a demonstration of the hardware — including a remotely readable stethoscope — that the dominant local health care facility uses to provide specialized care to distant clinics and affiliated hospitals. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has provided some funding for that effort.
Vilsack, who is chairman of the White House Rural Council, also talked about his role as leader of the Obama administration’s efforts to address the opioid epidemic in rural areas.
Future progress in that arena could include “physicians that are better prepared for prescribing opioids,” expanded access to medication-assisted treatment and encouragement to rural communities to better support substance users, he said.
More than 28,000 Americans died from heroin and prescription painkiller overdoses in 2014, and more than 2 million had related substance use disorders, Vilsack wrote in a March blog post.
Vilsack noted in that post that he grew up “with a mother who struggled with alcohol and prescription drug addiction” during his childhood. That taught him the importance of treatment, he said at D-H. Without access to the Alcoholics Anonymous program where she lived, Vilsack said of his mother, “she would not have turned her life around.”
Vilsack noted that President Obama’s proposed 2017 budget calls for $1.1 billion over a two-year period to expand and support providers in treatment programs that use medications to help substance use disorder patients recover.
So far, the rural efforts coordinated by Vilsack have been constrained by limited funding. A USDA fact sheet about that work points to more than $200 million in support the department has provided to develop or expand rural mental health and substance use disorder care facilities and $1.4 million in grants now available to fund up to five education programs.
While the U.S. Health and Human Services Department provides other funding, Vilsack said, there is “a tremendous opportunity here, but we do need resources.”
On Tuesday, Vilsack will be the luncheon speaker at a Summit on Substance Misuse called by Gov. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H.
Earlier Monday, Vilsack joined U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., in a visit to a Hillsborough County drug court.
The USDA is a key source of funding for health care and other non-agricultural development projects in rural areas.
In 2014, USDA provided $1 million in grants to help D-H expand its telemedicine efforts, which have been underway since 2012.
Sarah Pletcher, the physician director for DHMC’s Center for Telehealth, described the “virtual health system” that the hospital has created to provide remote but high-level stroke, neurology, pharmacy, emergency and intensive care.
“We really are the safety net,” she said.
Shovels are in the ground, or about to go there, for two other USDA-funded projects in the Upper Valley: the Mascoma Community Health Center in Canaan and the new headquarters for the Visiting Nurse and Hospice of Vermont and New Hampshire organization.
The USDA also financed the recent purchase, by the Community College System of New Hampshire, of a building on the pedestrian mall in Lebanon that belonged to the now-defunct Lebanon College.
Rick Jurgens can be reached at rjurgens@vnews.com or 603-727-3229.