MORGANTOWN, WV (WVNS) — Recently, the WVU School of Nursing’s Faith Community Nursing received two donations from Ultrasound Solutions Corp.

These donations will help support rural telehealth efforts in southern West Virginia. Nursing students will also have access to new and updated ultrasound technology to use on their patients.

The donations are for equipment that can be used in some of the most rural parts of West Virginia. It includes A telehealth robot that allows doctors and other care providers to connect with members in their community from wherever they may be. This is beneficial to people who have limited transportation or access to care providers that can support them.

In addition to the robot, the school has also received a donation of an ultrasound machine that we can be used to perform screenings such as, looking for aneurysms, ultrasounds of the liver, and kidneys. With this technology, the images through the telehealth robot can be viewed by experts who can be able to diagnose their patients more easily.

“So a lot of folks in West Virginia are trapped in very isolated communities where there’s no public transportation in many of these places, and a lot of folks don’t have cars or if they do have cars, they might have a hard time getting gas money to get where they need to go. And so often times, if it’s suggested that they see a specialist, they’re not able to. And so we’re trying to use creative ways to reconnect people in these rural parts of the state to experts,” explained Dr. Angel Smothers, Associate Dean for Community Engagement at the WVU School of Nursing.

West Virginia is the only state that is fully in Appalachia. It is also the third most rural state in the nation.

“As a state being very rural, we have some very isolated areas. And so this telehealth equipment is going to allow us to bridge the gap between folks who are living in the very rural, most rural parts of the state back to providers throughout the state or beyond, even if it’s a provider that’s not in the state of West Virginia,” added Smothers.

If you would like to learn more about these donations and what the WVU School of Nursing is doing in the rural parts of the state with the telehealth equipment, please reach out to the WVU School of Nursing, Office of Community Engagement. That department can give you more details on how you can get involved.