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Telehealth Program Lets Providers Monitor Rural Patients
Thursday, March 18 2010
by Rose Hoban
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In many rural parts of North Carolina, residents end up driving long distances to see their doctor. This becomes a problem for people with chronic diseases, like diabetes, that require frequent monitoring.
Now, a groundbreaking program in the northeastern part of the state is bringing that frequent monitoring home--over the telephone line. Already, the program has saved millions of dollars, and prevented dozens of hospitalizations. And people in other parts of the country are taking notice.
Roots Music Exhibit Comes to Mount Airy
Wednesday, March 17 2010
by Jessica Jones
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Mount Airy resident Chester McMillian toured for 15 years playing guitar.
A new exhibit from the Smithsonian has just arrived in North Carolina. It celebrates what’s called American roots music, including genres like jazz and folk that are unique to this country. This is the first traveling exhibit from the Smithsonian to come to North Carolina. Jessica Jones reports its first stop is in one of the most musically rich parts of the state.
Find out more about the New Harmonies exhibit:
http://www.nchumanities.org/index.html
Soul Census Ambassadors Work to Reach Undercounted
Tuesday, March 16 2010
by Leoneda Inge
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Ministers last week at First Baptist Church in Raleigh after being Pinned "Soul Census Ambassadors"
The 2000 Census showed that North Carolina was one of the fasted growing states in the nation. But that count wasn't perfect. Experts say North Carolina's population was undercounted by about 1.3 percent. And that meant millions of dollars in lost funds for schools, health care and more.
A big portion of the undercounted are poor minorities. In Wake County, ministers at African-American churches have been deputized to help find some of the undercounted. They're called Soul Census Ambassadors.
Tribal Leaders Promote Census
Monday, March 15 2010
by Leoneda Inge
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American Indian leaders are encouraging tribal members to fill out census forms when they arrive in the mail this week. North Carolina and nine other states have the largest American Indian populations. This demographic has been under-counted in the past at a higher rate than other minority populations.
North Carolina American Indians recently wrapped up their 35th annual Unity Conference in Raleigh, and the census bureau was there.
Shirley Freeman is a member of the Waccamaw-Siouon tribe. "Some now in my community cannot read and write," she says. "So we have to go into the homes and help them be accounted for. They know who they are, but as far as putting it on paper, seeing it and recognizing that it's a census form--that doesn't happen to some of them, even now."
Numbers show there are about 100,000 American Indians in the state.
