Michigan’s Spectrum Health is piloting a school-based telehealth program that aims to give rural high school students better access to telemental health services.

Greenville Public Schools is partnering with the Grand Rapids-based health system to give students at the high school access to a Master’s-level social worker through a telemedicine portal. The counselor, working out of Spectrum Health’s Lakeview Youth Clinic, can schedule as many as a half-dozen virtual visits a day with students who need help but don’t have access through traditional channels.

The service aims to a rural high school that has three counselors and one social worker for 1,200 students and – like so many other schools – is dealing with an increase in behavioral health concerns.

Spectrum Health, whose connected health portfolio includes the MedNow direct-to-consumer telehealth service, identified a need for school-based telehealth during a recent community health needs assessment, which is conducted every three years.

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