Several years ago, CJ Rhoads, a business professor at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania and CEO of consultancy HPL Consortium, asked Editor Steve and Donna for some background information on telehealth. According to her note last month to us, the results of her research were reported to the Pennsylvania legislature and The Center for Rural Pennsylvania (a legislative agency of the PA Assembly), in 2014 and now have been published in a more readable form by CRC Press-Taylor & Francis Group. An excerpt from their summary:

Improving the quality of healthcare, while increasing accessibility and lowering costs, is a complex dilemma facing rural communities around the world. The Center for Rural Pennsylvania believed that telehealth, the use of electronic information and telecommunications technologies to support long-distance clinical healthcare was a viable solution so it recently provided grants to conduct a thorough investigation into the factors involved.

Telehealth in Rural Hospitals: Lessons Learned from Pennsylvania reports the outcome of this year-long investigation. Illustrating telehealth implementations in rural settings, it supplies an overview of telehealth as well as an assessment of its economic impact.

The book skillfully intertwines the research and academic aspects of telehealth with helpful insights from the author.

From the table of contents, it appears to be an exhaustively researched book on telehealth and its impact in rural healthcare. It’s available to purchase on CRC’s website. Thanks to author CJ Rhoads for the heads up!