Tele-Health
Puppets Bring Health Content to Life through Telemedicine Carts
Patty Petrey Dees , Distance Learning Program Director for Puppetry Arts
In a unique collaboration between the Center for Puppetry Arts (CPA) and Georgia Partnership for TeleHealth (GPT), thousands of students across rural Georgia received free content on health and nutrition in an engaging and interactive way—puppet shows delivered through telemedicine carts!
A long-time educational videoconferencing provider, the CPA has served schools, libraries, and community centers since 1998. The arts center wanted to further its mission and provide more accessibility to rural and underserved areas with limited resources, so Distance Learning Program Director Patty Petrey Dees approached GPT with the idea of using schools’ health clinic telemedicine carts to deliver content. The GPT telemedicine carts have videoconferencing capabilities and utilize a user-friendly and cloud-based virtual room. The CPA was granted access to a virtual room on the GPT high-speed restricted network.
The project was quickly underway, and CPA’s Movin’ and Groovin’ HEALTH series was launched to students and counties with high obesity rates across Georgia. The telehealth clinic nurses and coordinators were critical team members and assisted in setting up the carts in their gymnasiums. The carts were connected to a projector and large screen, ensuring everyone could see, hear, and, most importantly, engage with the puppet and puppeteer through physical activities such as stretching, yoga, and even taking an imaginary walk through the park. The CPA hopes to extend the reach of this project to other states and countries with access to telehealth clinics, such as Honduras and Guatemala, through their GPT partnership.
