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Manteo’s Healthcare Task Force delved into Outer Banks Health’s use of telemedicine and telehealth and listened as an East Carolina University staffer talked about a new workforce program at its February meeting.

Outer Banks Health was the first in its network to start telemedicine for primary care. The use affects all aspects of the medical system, like emergency room visits, staffing, improving quality of care, and reducing costs for those with chronic disease, such as heart disease.

Telehealth has a long list of medical areas in use in Outer Banks Health: cardiology, care management, critical care, infectious disease, pathology, radiology, wound care and electronic consults.

In North Carolina, as of 2033, some 12,000 more nurses will be needed. By 2030, 76,000 health care jobs will be available.

In answer to those numbers, Outer Banks Health has started a program called “Homegrown.” It’s an effort to nurture students who may be interested in health care. In 2023, the health system partnered with Dare County Schools. The program started with one full interactive day of exposure to the services at the system’s hospital.

Three homegrown medical professionals are now working in Outer Banks Health. Six more are due to follow.

A high school internship program is now in operation with six to eight students using internships to work 120 hours.

Outer Banks Health now offers 29 scholarships, provides 22 students with shadowing experiences and 35 college internships.

As Dare County has grown, so has the need for medical professionals. Starting with 19 medical doctors, the system has now grown to 32 positions. The wait for new patients for first appointment is three to six months.

Outer Banks Health is more than doubling the size of the Manteo clinic, which is expected to open in late summer.

The Healthcare Task Force has been exploring the substance abuse treatment options available to residents in Dare County.

In the meeting, Randy Hamilton with Crossroads made the announcement that the task force working group on substance abuse is now meeting with the Saving Lives Task Force committee on the same subject.

Hamilton also announced that the Manteo group’s resource guide needs to be expanded to include the local National Alliance on Mental Illness guide that is interactive.

Hamilton also said the group was working on transportation to detox facilities. Currently, transportation is “cobbled together” through social networks.

An East Carolina University program is addressing some aspects of substance abuse disease.

W. Leigh Atherton came to talk about a grant program. Atherton is associate professor and interim chair, director of graduate programs, in the Department of Addictions and Rehabilitation Studies, College of Allied Health Sciences at the university.

The grant assists those recovering from addiction to get and keep a job. The grant has students working in Pitt, Lenoir, Beaufort, Martin, Bertie, Greene and Washington counties. The program provides support to job providers by listening to problems and talking with the jobholder. He says this process has a 100% success rate.

Asked if he could assist with identifying gaps in care in Dare and surrounding counties, Atherton referred the Healthcare Task Force to the Recovery Alliance Initiative in Chapel Hill.

In additional business, the task force elected Dr. Richard Martin, a mental health professional to the group.

On the preceptor program, the task force is expecting a University of North Carolina student for a week and a Campbell University student for a month. Both were set to arrive Feb. 24, 2025.

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