Better together: Competing universities unite to bring health care closer to rural Texans 

For decades, few could have imagined the names “Texas A&M” and “Texas Tech” side by side in collaboration. But today, Texas A&M University Health Science Center (Texas A&M Health) and Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) are joining forces to tackle an ongoing challenge: expanding access to health care in one of the state’s most underserved regions.

In Jeff Davis County, where the population is a little under 2,000, local access to care has historically been limited to one physician, often requiring residents to drive at least half an hour, or 22 miles, to Alpine, Texas, for general medical care. For specialty, same-day and pediatric care, they have to drive even further to Odessa, Texas, a two-and-a-half-hour commute in one direction, according to Sandra Chambers, executive assistant to County Judge Curtis Evans.

But that will soon change with the launch of a new medical clinic made possible through a collaboration between Texas A&M Health and TTUHSC.

Boots on the ground

Along with local leadership and other collaborators, the two leading research institutions have introduced innovative medical care to the town of Fort Davis, the seat of Jeff Davis County. The clinic comes in the form of a 40-foot shipping container retrofitted by the student-led organization, Texas A&M BUILD.

In line with the BUILD tradition of naming clinics after fallen Aggies, the Fort Davis clinic is dedicated to Airman 1st Class James “Adam” Lassiter ’08, who died in 2012 while on active duty with the U.S. Air Force.

Equipped with telehealth and tele-counseling capabilities, the facility offers convenient access to health care provided by both universities’ health science centers. When the clinic opens to the public on Aug. 5, licensed professionals from the Texas A&M Health Telehealth Institute will provide tele-counseling services, and TTUHSC family medicine doctors and medical residents based at Texas Tech Physicians in Odessa will provide telemedicine services.

“The launch of the Jeff Davis BUILD medical container marks another step forward in our mission to bring essential health care directly to rural communities,” said Carly McCord, PhD, executive director of the Telehealth Institute. “This collaboration effort with Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center will provide vital primary care and telebehavioral health services, addressing immediate needs in Jeff Davis County. We aim to ensure a truly comprehensive approach to fostering a healthier, more resilient community.”

By eliminating the round trip of five hours for medical care, community leaders are hopeful that fewer students will miss school, and adults will spend less time away from work. The addition of the new medical clinic in the area will completely revolutionize day-to-day life, said Chambers, who has lived in Fort Davis for two decades.

“We want you to get better, both physically and mentally,” she said. “If you’re struggling and you’ve had a hard time with diabetes or high blood pressure or anxiety, all of that can be worked out now—right here in our own backyard.”

The spirit of Tejas

Increasing access to care is a well-established priority for both universities. Both have historically prioritized rural medicine and built programs to expand care to the state’s most vulnerable populations.

“We started our rural medicine program with it being centered on helping communities bolster their health care workforce,” said Curtis Donaldson, executive director of Rural Medicine at the Texas A&M College of Medicine, part of Texas A&M Health. “We send our medical students out to rural communities to let them see what real practice looks like in the hope that they will one day return there to work—because our goal as a land grant university is to come alongside these communities and help them in whatever way we can.”

Coleman Johnson, interim executive vice president for the Division of Rural Affairs at TTUHSC, said their medical school was formed for the same reason—to serve communities, especially in rural areas.

Over the last several years, both universities have been working to find new ways to forge community relationships and create solutions to address health care disparities. A partnership between the two felt like a logical step that all started when Judge Evans introduced Donaldson and Billy Philips, the former executive vice president for the Division of Rural Affairs at TTUHSC.

Donaldson was already in talks with Jeff Davis County, Johnson recounted, and he asked Philips to have a conversation about the great things they could achieve together.

“Billy said, ‘We need to be working together,’ and I said, ‘I’m right there with you’. And we just kind of hit it off and started collaborating on this,” Donaldson said.

After that meeting, the idea of a partnership between TTUHSC and Texas A&M Health began to flourish, even garnering donations from the Yarbourough Foundation and F. Marie Hall Foundation to fund the project.

Adrian Billings, MD, PhD, associate academic dean of the Rural and Community Engagement Division in the School of Medicine at TTUHSC, emphasized the importance of collaboration over competition. He referenced a favorite saying from his mentor: “Our most significant professional accomplishments in life are done as a team.” Billings also highlighted the need to not only bring health care closer to home, but to ensure that medical education is closely aligned with the real-world needs of rural communities.

“I think that what Texas A&M Health and TTUHSC are accomplishing here is instead of competing, we are working together collaboratively to try and meet the needs of this frontier health area that has a professional shortage and very limited access to care,” Billings said. “And not only is it about meeting the needs of the community members that live there in the county, but it’s also about trying to expose more of our trainees to frontier medicine or rural medicine. This is truly frontier medicine because of the low population density.”

Deep in the heart

As of July 2024, nearly 50% of Jeff Davis County residents are over the age of 65, which is far higher than the state’s average of around 20% for people over 60. Meanwhile, the county’s younger population continues to decline, with only about 5% of residents under the age of 18, compared to nearby Hudspeth County’s 12%. This demographic shift is reflected in the Fort Davis Independent School District, which serves around 1,500 people but has just 263 students enrolled in kindergarten through 12th grade.

According to Chambers, the biggest obstacle to keeping rural towns like Fort Davis from shrinking is access to health care. As residents age, many leave the small mountain town for places like Alpine, Odessa or El Paso to be closer to major medical facilities and family. At the same time, young families often relocate for better access to daycare and pediatric care.

To counter this, Jeff Davis County has prioritized making the clinic as accessible as possible by placing it in the town square.

“We put it right beside our emergency medical services, which is right by the courthouse in the town square,” Chambers said. “So, it’s very accessible. We made sure that people would be able to see it and know it’s there.”

Additionally, Chambers said a local resident is donating the use of their old church bus to bring patients to and from the clinic. There are also plans to form a prescription delivery system, either transporting residents to Alpine for their prescriptions or retrieving them on behalf of the community for local pickup.

Once the BUILD clinic opens, Chambers said the county plans to offer daily access to a nearby community center where residents can get help signing up for free or reduced-cost health insurance. She said they also hope to provide child care services to support families and help grow the county’s shrinking population.

“If we can all produce things like that and start rallying around our younger generation and our seniors, it’s just going to help the community grow, because the last thing we want is for our communities to die,” she said.

Eyes on the horizon

This project isn’t just impacting Jeff Davis County. Clinics like this one—and the recent opening of the BUILD container in Kenedy County in South Texas—are inspiring additional partnerships and expansion in other medically underserved areas of the state.

Johnson said he hopes to continue strengthening the relationship with Texas A&M Health and TTUHSC by establishing additional clinics and collaborating on research.

“It’s not just the deployment of the access point for telehealth, but how do we ensure that the telehealth that’s being provided is actually doing what we assume it’s going to do, which is improve access to care and health care outcomes of communities,” he said. “So, I foresee research as another collaboration opportunity. We’re planning on further access points but also working to study and publish on the impacts of telehealth.”

Looking ahead, Johnson views this partnership as a significant step toward improving the lives of Texans—especially those in rural communities—as both universities continue to prioritize rural health year after year.

“I think the days of trying to do it by pulling your bootstraps and doing it alone are becoming more and more difficult,” he said. “The success of our efforts will be exponentially increased through partnerships and collaborations.”

Bridging these institutions’ efforts goes beyond simply cutting red tape and meeting standards—it’s about building a foundation for lasting change through collective action. At the heart of this initiative lies a shared commitment to serve those who have historically been overlooked. For everyone involved, collaboration is not just a strategy—it’s a means to ensure that the focus remains on what matters most: the well-being of rural communities and the people within them.

“I mean, it’s all about the people,” Donaldson said. “It’s all about the rural Texans. It’s all about delivering access.”