Establishing a rural telehealth project: the Wyoming network for telehealth

The State of Wyoming, USA, is developing a series of demonstration projects on the use of telehealth technology to improve health care accessibility and quality in a frontier region. The Wyoming Network for Telehealth (WyNETTE) will focus on increasing the awareness and usage of technology for patient care, professional education, and informatics resources. The project objectives will include enhancing information access for practitioners and creating links between community health centers, public health offices, and state health officials. The need for this project was established through a number of community-oriented data collections, including a statewide survey of health care providers on the topic of using technology to improve delivery of health care survey in the state. The research showed a general lack of awareness of or experience with telehealth in the state. Nonetheless, there was considerable interest in developing partnerships to support a network of telehealth services. This paper will present the results of this data collection and how they are being used to guide the development of the WyNETTE project.