GE, NRHA partner to increase healthcare education in rural settings

GE Healthcare and the National Rural Health Association (NRHA) have launched a joint venture called "Grant-in-Aid-Partnership" that will provide healthcare professionals and patients in rural-area hospitals across the U.S. with better access to high-quality healthcare education.

The program will enable hospitals that are members of the NRHA to provide educational programs for their patients and staff via GE satellite TV for a fraction of the standard cost, said GE.

NRHA's members include more than 500 U.S. hospitals, all of which will qualify for the program. Each participating hospital will be equipped with two GE satellite TV channels that carry educational programming from GE and other education providers - Tip TV for the hospital staff and The Patient Channel for hospital patients.

The NRHA will administer the program, while GE will provide the equipment, programming content, and user tools necessary to bring high-quality training programs and patient education to the participating hospitals.

In addition, GE said it will provide tools and training to help the hospitals optimize awareness of and participation in the educational programming. Hospitals also will be able to use GE's online Healthcare Learning System to administer staff continuing education credits at no charge.

Over the two-year duration of the grant period, GE said it will contribute nearly $35,000 worth of educational resources to each participating hospital.

The announcement was made this week during the National Conference of State Legislatures' annual meeting in Denver, Colo. A portion of the conference, which brings together state legislators from all over the country, is focused on exploring ways to improve rural healthcare in the United States.

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