Bay Rivers Telehealth Alliance (BRTA) is a non-profit telehealth network based in Tappahannock, VA serving residents east of Richmond and Fredericksburg, VA in rural Eastern Virginia including the Northern Neck, Middle Peninsula, and Eastern Shore. BRTA’s vision is for virtual health strategies to contribute to better health and well-being for populations in Virginia communities.
We aim to serve communities by developing telehealth projects that improve access to health services; engage patients as partners; reduce professional isolation among health service providers; and provide access to training and development of the health care workforce. Since 2012 BRTA has been successful in expanding access to medical care for rural populations via telehealth technologies-from remote, live interactive videoconferencing consults by urban-based specialists to reach rural patients and provider facilities.
BRTA has been awarded repeated grant funding by the US Health Resources and Services Administration Office for the Advancement of Telehealth, as a part of the Telehealth Network Grant Program(TNGP) which provides geriatric behavioral telehealth services throughout a rural network of healthcare sites and long-term care facilities in Southeastern Virginia through 2016. Another grant was awarded in September 2016, for a five-year school-based initiative to introduce telehealth into three rural school systems.
In April 2015 and 2018 the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy awarded BRTA a 3-year grant to implement Remote Home Monitoring and Chronic Disease Self-Management in partnership with the award-winning Eastern Virginia Care Transitions Partnership, recognized by the Virginia Center for Health Innovation and the U.S. Center for Medicare Services which provides post-discharge coaching to reduce hospital readmissions. In 2018, 2020 and 2021, BRTA received grants to coordinate Rural Opioid Response using Telehealth-Enabled Innovations.
In 2018, HRSA named BRTA a Rural Health Community Champion for our work on Evidence-Based, Promising Practices Model, which is listed in the Rural Health Information Hub for Chronic Disease Management and the COPD Tool-Kit. In 2020, BRTA received a grant to establish the Eastern Shore Telehealth Consortium, and pilot telehealth-enabled Medication Assisted Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder with the Eastern Shore Regional Jail, and healthcare providers on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.
Bay Rivers Telehealth Alliance is a membership organization including Riverside Health System, Virginia Commonwealth University, Bay Aging, Middle Peninsula/Northern Neck Community Services Board, Rappahannock Community College, Bay Workforce Investment Board, Eastern Virginia Medical School, Eastern Shore Community Services Board, Eastern Shore Rural Health Services, Central Virginia Health Services, Virginia Department of Health (Three Rivers and Eastern Shore Districts) and the Ledwith-Lewis Free Clinic.