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Rural Health Information Hub

University of Kansas Medical Center

  • Project Title: Telehealth Rural Outreach to Children in Kansas City Schools (ROCKS)
  • Grant Period: 9/01/2016 – 8/31/2020
  • Program Representative Interviewed: Eve-Lynn Nelson, Principal Investigator
  • Location: Kansas City, KS
  • Program Overview: The Telehealth ROCKS program provides overall outreach engagement and telehealth services to address developmental and behavioral disorders among children in rural South Central and Southeast Kansas, with expansion statewide. The University of Kansas Medical Center partners with the Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas, the South Central Kansas Special Education Cooperative, Ashley Clinic, and a growing number of primary care practices. The project also provides telehealth services to schools and school-based health centers. The project provides a range of evidence-based pediatric services through live-video telehealth, including developmental/autism and behavioral health assessments, counseling, medication management, behavior analysis, healthy lifestyle, and pediatric psychology interventions with children with chronic illness. Telehealth ROCKS also offers Project ECHO to rural primary care, school personnel (school nurses, counselors, teachers, administrators, others), and advocates from child-serving systems to increase their capacity to address pediatric behavioral and developmental issues. Project ECHO clinics have covered topics related to psychopharmacology, ADHD, autism, irritability, pediatric obesity, pediatric asthma, and transition to adulthood. Another Telehealth ROCKS program, Behavior Checker, trains rural primary care teams in parenting best practices. The project includes trainees across all goals, including Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and related Disabilities (LEND) trainees, psychology interns, psychiatry fellows, graduate students, and others.

Models represented by this program: