Wyoming Telehealth Network Receives Grant to Expand States Health Care Access

The Wyoming Telehealth Network (WyTN) was recently awarded $178,200 of the state’s American Recovery Plan Act funding from Wyoming’s State Loan and Investment Board for an innovative approach to increasing access to telehealth equipment and infrastructure to expand health care for Wyoming residents.

WyTN is a project of the Wyoming Institute for Disabilities (WIND), an academic unit in the University of Wyoming’s College of Health Sciences.

The funding supports the purchase of telehealth equipment in a first-of-its-kind pilot project to establish eight community telehealth access sites across the state. The pilot program is a direct partnership with Amanda DeDiego, an assistant professor of counseling with the UW College of Education’s Counselor Education Program, as well as with three public libraries in Natrona, Park and Sheridan counties, the Sweetwater County Detention Center and four UW Extension offices located in the northeast, southeast, northwest and southwest regions.

Each site will provide private HIPAA-secure public spaces that can be used for confidential telehealth appointments with health care providers licensed in Wyoming to provide increased access to telehealth services.

Rural areas of the state are some of the hardest places to deliver consistent access to specialized and mental health care.

“Expanding access to health care in a state with multiple barriers to care is challenging,” says Canyon Hardesty, an associate director at WIND. “By working with unique partners, we can reach more people and provide health care services in a stigma-free and safe environment with reliable broadband access.”

Wyoming residents may struggle with barriers to accessing medical care, including rural locations; stigma about receiving health care, particularly mental health care; lack of safety; and lack of adequate technology or broadband to access telehealth from home.

The project seeks to advance how health care is delivered across multiple settings while enhancing provider and patient digital literacy and overcoming broadband barriers to care.

“We are grateful for the generous support from the Wyoming State Loan and Investment Board toward expanded health care access,” Hardesty says.

For more information about the project, email WyTN at wytn@uwyo.edu.

About the UW College of Health Sciences

UW’s College of Health Sciences trains health and wellness professionals and researchers in a wide variety of disciplines, including medicine, nursing, pharmacy, communication disorders, social work, kinesiology, community and public health, and disability studies.

The college also oversees residency and fellowship programs in Casper and Cheyenne, as well as operating primary care and speech/hearing clinics in Laramie, Casper and Cheyenne.

With more than 1,600 undergraduate, graduate and professional students, the college is dedicated to training the health and wellness workforce of Wyoming and conducting high-quality research and community engagement, with a particular focus on rural and frontier populations.