BURTON, Texas (KCBD) – Texas Tech Health Sciences Center and Texas A&M’s engineering department have opened their second shipping container medical clinic in a rural Texas community, this time in Burton, located between Austin and Houston.
The 40-foot shipping container has been retrofitted to provide primary and behavioral health care using telehealth technology in areas where medical access is limited.
Dr. Lori Rice-Spearman, president of the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center, said rural health disparities remain significant.
“For example, in some rural counties the life expectancy is 17 years less than in urban areas,” Rice-Spearman said.
The partnership combines Texas A&M’s engineering expertise with Texas Tech’s medical resources.
“Texas A&M has a wonderful college of engineering, very innovative, creative so when you look at their work and combine it with our TTUHSC which has the largest group medical practice between Dallas and Phoenix,” Rice-Spearman said. “The motto has been stronger and better together, and when we set aside some of our football rivalries, gig’em and wreck’em, what we’re able to accomplish together is going to be a tremendous service for Texas in building healthy communities.”
The first container clinic was set up in Fort Davis last year to serve that rural part of West Texas.
The goal is to deploy as many as 40 containers across the state to provide health care access to rural Texans.
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