CCMH receives $1.89 million grant

Funding connects rural patients to ICU, Pharmacy specialists through a grant from the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust.

The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust has awarded Campbell County Health $1,892,649 for eCare, a program that gives physicians immediate access to specialty care and pharmacists 24 hours a day. The grant will be used to purchase equipment that connects local physicians with specialists and pharmacists.

Campbell County Health will receive equipment for eICU services and ePharmacy. eICU services links rural Intensive Care Units to an around-the-clock care team lead by intensivists. Medical monitoring equipment at three ICU bedsides at the hospital will give the intensivist team a firsthand look at patients. ePharmacy provides 24-hour access to hospital-trained pharmacists, making it possible for patients to receive prescriptions when the on-staff pharmacist is not available.

"This incredible gift gives local physicians and health care workers an additional connection to specialty care and pharmacists even if they live in rural areas that have fewer specialty physicians and health professioinals," says Alan Mitchell, M.D., chair of the Campbell County Health Board of Trustees. "This gives patients the opportunity to stay close to home during treatment."

The Rural Healthcare Program of The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust began awarding grants in 2009. In the last two years, the Trust has awarded more than $84 million in grants to nonprofit organizations in the region.

The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, etstablished in 1999, supports a diverse range of organizations with a major focus on health and medical research, human services, education and conservation. To date, the Trust has announced more than $400 million in grants to charitable organizations.