Dr. Kristi Wick is a UC Foundation assistant professor and Vicky B. Gregg chair in Gerontology
photo by Angela Foster/UTC
Older adults living in rural Tennessee counties are at a higher risk for developing chronic diseases, cognitive disorders and poor health outcomes due to a lack of access to health care, continuity of treatment and resources. A grant awarded to the UTC School of Nursing aims to mitigate those risks by delivering health care and social services professionals to rural communities.
The School of Nursing has been awarded $2.6 million from the Tennessee Department of Health for a project titled ROAD MAP, an acronym for Rural Health and Older ADult Interprofessional Mobile HeAlth Program.
The grant is from TDH’s Healthcare Resiliency Program, which is making $119 million in funding available to 41 eligible applicants—including the School of Nursing’s ROAD MAP request. HRP funding was approved as part of the Tennessee Resiliency Plan, created in March 2022 by Tennessee’s Financial Stimulus Accountability Group.
ROAD MAP funding will enable the purchase of a mobile health vehicle that will regularly visit rural Southeast Tennessee senior centers offering education, health promotion, health screening, primary care and social services to older adults.
The initiative seeks to improve access to health care and raise awareness of chronic disease management. Long-term objectives include lowering caregiver stress, increasing community resource use, reducing emergency room visits and decreasing social isolation for older adults.
Dr. Kristi Wick, UC Foundation assistant professor and Vicky B. Gregg chair in Gerontology, and Vice Provost Shewanee Howard-Baptiste are co-principal investigators on the grant-funded project, leading a ROAD MAP team that includes Dr. Sarah Treat (School of Nursing), Dr. Latisha Toney (School of Nursing), Dr. Amir Alakaam (Master of Public Health), Dr. Erin Melhorn (Occupational Therapy) and Dr. Cathy Scott (Social Work).
Dr. Wick said the mobile health vehicle would serve older adults and caregivers in the Southeast Tennessee Area Agency on Aging and Disability district—Bledsoe, Bradley, Grundy, Hamilton, Marion, McMinn, Meigs, Polk, Rhea and Sequatchie counties—by bringing interprofessional health care into underserved areas.
“Being able to bring specific services for older adults to a rural community will be huge,” Dr. Wick said. “Even something as simple as providing information about home modifications—like the importance of a ramp or shower chairs to help prevent falls will allow people to stay safely in their homes longer.
“Getting out to those rural, vulnerable adults … there’s definitely a gap in services and there’s definitely plenty of opportunities to serve.”
Dr. Wick said there are steps to follow in procuring and contracting the mobile health unit. It will be customized to allow for specific services such as the ability to equip the mobile vehicle with telehealth so that people “may be able to use telehealth for their visits with their neurologist or different specialists—saving them from having to drive two hours to get to Hamilton County.”
To learn more about ROAD MAP and the mobile health vehicle, visit UTC News.