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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Dale Halsey Lea, RN, MPH, FAAN, Southern Maine Regional Genetics Services Foundation for Blood Research, P.O. 190 69 U.S. Route #1, Scarborough, ME 04070, 207-883-4131, dlea@fbr.org and Sharon Schulberger, Maine Chapter, March of Dimes Foundation, 60 Gray Road, Unit #8, Falmouth, ME 04105-2024.
Maine is a rural state with only one major medical center. Health care specialists are few and concentrated in the south-central part of the state; there are only two public health genetics clinics in the entire state. Health care providers and patients are eager to gain access to the burgeoning bank of genetics knowledge to positively impact birth outcomes. Unfortunately, Maine providers and patients face geographic and financial barriers in seeking continuing education and easy access to genetics services.
In 2000, the Foundation for Blood Research (FBR), with funding from the March of Dimes, embarked on a project to increase accessibility to genetics educational and clinical services throughout Maine. FBR has established a telemedicine capacity linking Southern Maine Genetics Services (SMGS), FBR with rural health care centers and statewide public health nursing offices located throughout Maine. Over a three-year period, SMGS in collaboration with Maine Telemedicine Services, will link to selected participants from over 40 telemedicine sites in rural Maine.
This presentation will describe the genetics educational component for providers that combines requested genetics educational programs and clinical consults. Built on previously-tested educational programs, the genetics programs are presented to practitioners via telemedicine in their own practice setting. CME’s and CEU’s are awarded for each. For the clinical consults, practitioners present their patients to genetics specialists and take part in the consultation, follow-up and management. To date, 25 educational programs and 35 clinical consults have been held and evaluated for the quality, acceptability and usefulness of educational and clinical genetics services.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session, the participant will be able to
Keywords: Genetics, Telemedicine
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: Southern Maine Genetics Services Foundation for Blood Research
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.