According to the state health services department, Texas has about 4.3 million rural residents – more than any other state.
Long distances to seek health care can be hard on patients. It's also difficult for health care providers needing to stay current on training.
Texas Health Resources in January launched a mobile medical simulation lab to bring needed training to rural providers outside the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
KERA's Sam Baker talked with Rhonda Thompson, manager of the Medical Simulation Program for Texas Health Fort Worth.
Thompson: We saw that most learners were from downtown and the surrounding cities, but we weren't seeing a lot of activity coming in from the outskirts of DFW.
Baker: When you say learners, who are we talking about specifically?
Thompson: From your community members all the way to medical personnel through physician with EMTs, paramedics, nursing, all of the in-between.
Baker: And this would be people who would normally come into town for training?
Thompson: That's correct. The problem we recognized is when you approach someone an hour and a half away and ask them if they want to come into the brick and mortar facility to do four hours of training, you're talking an hour-and-a-half drive here, the time for the classroom, and the time to drive back home essentially is a full day. And these establishments are finding it difficult to release that amount of staff for a full day of learning, and so they would just forgo it.
Baker: What, then, does that mean for the quality of health care for rural residents?
Thompson: It means there could be a lack of positive outcomes for the community.
Baker: To spend an entire day, that in essence is like what, a day that residents in need might have to go without healthcare potentially?
Thompson: I wouldn't say go without, but that this definitely increases a positive outcome for them.
To be able to have hands-on training right there available, and also they can request specific training. Maybe they're seeing a lot of patients that are diabetics. They're seeing lot of postpartum bleeding.
With this opportunity for our truck to come out to them, we are able to teach the medical providers maybe streamlined, updated, evidence-based information. We are about to teach code blue classes, tips and tricks that we may have learned that we can share with them.
They can practice those things because the simulation truck has a mannequin that can depict any ailment or illness. And the nurse or patient care tech or physician can physically put their hands on this mannequin and practice on this mannequin just as they would a patient.
And even the simpler things, if someone does come in with low blood sugar or high blood sugar, you know, how they can treat that mannequin is the same as that how they treat a real person that's actively having the same problem.
Baker: What's your ultimate goal with a lab?
Thompson: The ultimate goal is to reach out to the outskirts of the Metroplex, and be able to educate those folks — community members, again, all the way to physicians, whether it be something at a daycare, EMS, firefighter establishment, other hospitals, whoever needs us, to improve the health of the people in the communities that we serve. And those communities are not just the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area. They extend past that into those rural areas as well.
RESOURCES:
Rural Texas Strong - Project Narrative
Texas Rural Health Association
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