The Southwest Virginia Health Authority has collaborated with University medical school officials and professors to improve health services in the region by creating "The Blueprint for Health Improvement."\nDel. Bud Phillips, D-Dickenson, and chair of the Southwest Virginia Health Authority, said the blueprint's overall goals are to provide citizens of Southwest Virginia adequate health care, to improve citizens' overall quality of life and to create jobs in the region. Southwest Virginia has a premature mortality rate and lags behind the rest of the state in terms of health, Phillips said.\nDavid Cattell-Gordon, director of rural network development at the University Office of Telemedicine, said the initiative began with a grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission to the College at Wise. The public health science department at the University's Medical School became involved to "help guide the process of strategic plan development" and reviewed the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to health in the region.\n"I have never seen more energy in health care and excitement about doing something for the health of Southwest Virginia," said Tom Townsend, Graduate Medical Education Consortium chair of the board of directors.\nPediatrics Prof. Karen Rheuban, who also serves as the Office of Telemedicine's medical director, said the Health Authority engages legislators, health district directors, the private health system, economic development agencies and universities, including the University, U.Va.-Wise, VCU and ETSU. "The Blueprint for Health Improvement," therefore, will allow for an expansion of crucial research efforts and enhanced community engagement efforts, she said.\nRheuban said the University has performed statistical analysis and research, and has agreed to come to Southwest Virginia to oversee a medical-specialist training center. In an effort to achieve the blueprint's goals, students and faculty might teach, work in the training center or provide local doctors with educational opportunities.\nIn addition, the Health Authority will be working with VCU's School of Dentistry to oversee the creation of a new dental school in Wise, starting with a dental clinic, Phillips said. Currently, the dental facility is in its pre-construction phase.\nIn designing the blueprint, officials are looking to create strategies that could improve medical facilities in the area, and have applied for federal grants to do so.\n"This is just the start of everything," Rheuban said. "We still need to get funding and build facilities. This puts together a whole consortium of parties that have the ability to influence change."\nPhillips noted that the new plan is one of the first health initiatives of its kind.\n"We're talking about a health system from the top-down, and we're trying to determine what the needs of the people of southwest Virginia are," he said. "If you're going to solve health care, citizens need a say."\nIn the future, Rheuban said commonwealth leaders may even try to create a Virginia-wide health authority modeled after southwest Virginia's.\nKate Colwell contributed to this article.
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