Date of Award

2023

Document Type

Honors Thesis (Open Access)

Department

Colby College. Science, Technology and Society Program

Advisor(s)

Ashton Wesner

Abstract

This project focuses on the fact that there exist communities in the United States that are underserved in terms of healthcare. Whether this is due to the community’s geographical (remote) location, lack of education, or other factors, the members of these communities experience disproportionate levels of care. My focus with this project will be the idea that everyone deserves adequate healthcare, regardless of where they live. I focus specifically on one community: Jackman, Maine, which has recently implemented a telemedicine program called ‘FirstNet’ to aid its previously struggling clinic. The Jackman Community Health Center is the only health clinic in Jackman, and is not an adequate size or scope to address the needs of the community without additional assistance. FirstNet, which embodies telemedicine, connects medical professionals with patients in need of care, has served to lessen the strain felt by the few medical assistants on site at Jackman Community Health Center. The project emphasizes the problems faced by rural and remote communities in the context of inadequate healthcare and the potential solution of implementing telemedicine programs to aid its residents and decrease barriers to care. Telemedicine encompasses monitoring, consultation, diagnostic, and post-operative practices, offering the promise of improved healthcare resources to under-resourced communities. By supplying the members of these communities with remote-presence medical devices, I hypothesize they will see increased access to the professional healthcare resources that they may not otherwise have access to.

Keywords

telemedicine, telehealth, rural medicine, mobile medicine

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