(Reuters) - As the coronavirus pandemic spreads deeper into America’s small towns and rural outposts, Dr. Tallulah Holmstrom has seen familiar faces fill her intensive-care unit in Camden, South Carolina.

A native of this hamlet of 7,000 people, Holmstrom saw its ICU threatened with closure in recent years as specialists departed for bigger cities. Now faraway doctors are helping treat the community’s COVID-19 patients, thanks to technology.

KershawHealth, the local hospital, installed cameras and other equipment for 24-hour monitoring by a company that employs doctors and nurses remotely. Sitting in cubicles in St. Louis, Houston and Honolulu, as well as other countries including Israel and India, these medical workers watch patients’ vital signs on computer screens and talk to local staff on two-way video about medications and treatments. KershawHealth employees can summon emergency help from these teleworkers by hitting a button on the wall.

The Mullan Institute and Dr. Patricia Pittman were quoted in the article. 

The Fitzhugh Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity was cited in an article in this Teaching and Learning in Nursing article by Kathleen Gravens PhD, RN and Sharon Goldfarb DNP, RN, FNP-BC. 

Abstract: The Organization of Associate Degree Nursing has declared Advancing the Social Mission of Nursing as the major theme for the year (Meyer, 2020). Nursing's historic roots are embedded in social mission. Social mission encompasses the social determinants of health, which are a major factor impacting health outcomes. In order to effectively prepare associate degree nursing graduates to address issues related to health equity, nurse educators should re-examine the core purpose of nursing education to ensure inclusion of social mission.
Read Full Article here. 

The Mullan Institute's Contact Tracer Estimator Tool was mentioned in a Wired article by Gregory Barber and Will Knight.

Researchers at George Washington University estimate that many states have fewer contact tracers than they need. California, for example, needs more than 30,000 contact tracers to keep up with the virus’s spread, according to the researchers. An NPR survey last month found the state had less than a third of that number.

Read the full article. 

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Sept. 4, 2020) – The Fitzhugh Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity, based at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, today announced that Toyese Oyeyemi, Jr., has been named Director of the Beyond Flexner Alliance program.

​Oyeyemi, who started Sept. 1, previously served as a Health Extension Regional Officer and researcher at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center. As a public health practitioner and researcher, Oyeyemi is committed to finding innovative solutions to improve community health and increasing diversity and inclusion in the healthcare workforce. As director of the Beyond Flexner Alliance, Oyeyemi’s primary focus will be to connect leaders in healthcare with one another, encourage new practices of global learning within the alliance, and engage a broader and more inclusive set of social mission stakeholders and programming into the program’s work.

Dr. Candice Chen was featured in this National Geographic piece about contact tracing written by Lois Parshley. 

BETWEEN A SWEEP of mountains and an expanse of dark waters, a 14-story building looms over Prince William Sound. Most of Whittier, Alaska’s 280 residents live in the peach-colored confines of Begich Tower, which was built in 1956 as a U.S. Army barracks. The building has its own post office and grocery store. An underground tunnel leads to the town’s small school. “We are our own petri dish—we share the same ventilation system,” says Jim Hunt, the city’s manager.

​Read more.