Contact: James Carskadon

CANTON, Miss.—Mississippi State University’s Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems-Extension is launching a new healthcare initiative in the Mississippi Delta with $803,058 in funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development.

The funding will be used to establish the Delta BroadReach Healthcare project, which will train healthcare professionals, telehealth providers and entry-level emergency medical technicians in the Delta. MSU’s partners on the project include Copiah-Lincoln Community College, Hinds Community College and North Central Planning and Development District.

“The Delta BroadReach Healthcare project is expected to provide a significant positive impact for healthcare facilities and individuals and to help narrow the gap in healthcare in the Mississippi service region,” said CAVS-Extension Director Glenn Dennis. “The programs and services offered will help to keep patients closer to home, improve the hospitals’ operating margins, improve care coordination, and improve the overall operations and processes of healthcare facilities in the region. We look forward to working with our partners on this impactful project.”

CAVS-E, Co-Lin, Hinds CC and NCPDD formed the Delta Regional Community Healthcare Consortium as part of the project. The funding will address the following areas:

• CAVS-E will provide training and technical assistance to healthcare professionals to help improve their quality of services, reduce their costs, and increase the speed of delivery of healthcare services;
• Co-Lin will utilize the funding to purchase telehealth equipment and devices and train healthcare professionals and patients in the service area on the usage of Telehealth services;
• Hinds CC will expand its Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) program to reach individuals interested in emergency medical sciences and prepare them to take the EMT National Registry exam;
• North Central Planning and Development District will be instrumental in helping to identify unmet needs and disseminate information about the Delta BroadReach Healthcare project in the service area.

Funding for the project was announced this week by U.S. Senators Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith.

CAVS-E Project Manager John Moore is the principal investigator on the grant, with Lean Healthcare Deployment Coordinator Susan Moore and Project Coordinator Debbie Miller serving as co-principal investigators. The project builds on CAVS-E’s “lean hospitals” program that helps healthcare providers improve the quality of care for patients by reducing errors and waiting times, as well as the center’s healthcare systems process improvement training, which has been administered to over 600 healthcare employees in the state.

For more on CAVS-Extension, visit www.cavse.msstate.edu.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.