February 2019

TELEHEALTH BEAT HTRC's monthly telehealth bulletin

Deploying technology solutions to help children reach a healthy weight Children see an average of 11.7 junk food advertisements per day according to a University of Illinois study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Many low-income and rural areas are surrounded by fast food restaurants and convenience stores with high-fat, high-sugar foods, while access to fresh produce is limited. This environment can make it challenging for families and children to establish healthy habits. But researchers are using technological solutions to help give families the tools they need to help children reach a healthy weight. The iAmHealthy program utilizes ipads to provide individual and group coaching to children and families in their schools and homes. Ann Davis, Ph.D., director of the Center for Children's Healthy Lifestyles and Nutrition , is the pediatric psychologist who leads the project. The program works with students in grades 2-4 and includes healthy lifestyle groups and group sessions where students can support one another and learn skills like goal setting, reading nutrition labels and tracking calories. Initially, the program was delivered only within the school setting but it has recently expanded into homes. The new emphasis on the home setting includes an individual coaching session every other week with children and their families. “We started out working with children in their schools,” said Davis. “But we really wanted to try to help kids in their homes and communities where most of their meals are eaten. With this window into their home, we can provide individualized, real-time coaching to help children evaluate and solve-problems. This use of technology helps keep the program collaborative and engaging instead of just becoming an assignment for the child.” Davis and Eve-Lynn Nelson, Ph.D., a co-investigator for iAmHealthy, shared one child’s story to illustrate the importance of the in-home coaching sessions. The program uses the Go, Slow, Whoa method, where foods are divided into healthy and unhealthy categories based on a red, yellow and green stoplight metaphor. One child had a goal to eat no more than one unhealthy "red" food a day. During an ipad coaching session the coach asked the child to retrieve several labels from his breakfast to review together in real-time. The child discovered that he had actually eaten three red foods - for breakfast alone. It’s this type of real-world insight that researchers hope will help children and families achieve their goals. In addition to ipads, IAmHealthy utilizes various other technologies to help promote health in children including activity trackers, training videos for parents and calorie counting apps. Monitoring health data helps parents and schools better understand their children's health. One father was astonished to learn that his son was eating 5000 calories in a day. In addition to the treatment group, iAmHealthy also includes a control group that receives a health newsletter once a month for eight months. The program, funded by the National Institutes of Health, will expand into six new rural communities during the next grant year.

Obesity Medicine ECHO Oklahoma State University has an ongoing effort to improve treatment for child and adult obesity through their Obesity Medicine ECHO, now in its second year. The ECHO team of obesity medicine experts includes a pediatrician, nurse case manager, psychologist and dietitian. Practitioners can join the ECHO to learn more about effective, evidence-based treatment for obesity. REGISTER

EVENTS

Join HTRC at 12 noon CST on March 5, to learn more about standards and best practices for teledentistry. REGISTER Other upcoming HTRC webinars: April 2: ALS telehealth program in Kansas May 7: Telehealth and the opioid crisis June 4: Direct to consumer - how to vet health providers

National TRC Webinar: Creative Telehealth Training in an Academic Setting March 21 12 noon CST The University of Utah offers health sciences students a unique telehealth training experience combined with interprofessional education (IPE). Students from fields such as nursing, medicine and social work are taught telehealth concepts, etiquette and IPE competencies. Afterwards, simulated complex case studies over video provide a safe environment for students to use telehealth in an interprofessional setting. A partnership with Utah Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) Scholars Program broadened the training so students from multiple universities and colleges across Utah train together. Hosted by: The Northwest Regional Telehealth Resource Center REGISTER

LOCAL NEWS

Missouri Telehealth Summit profiles Missouri telehealth successes In January, over 180 attendees gathered at the fifth annual Missouri Telehealth Summit. During a morning presentation, Brent Thieman, M.D., a physician with St. Luke’s Health System in Kansas City, shared highlights and solutions discovered in the early stages of St. Luke's telehealth program expansion, which now extends to seven community hospitals in Kansas and Missouri. "Patients are sicker than ever before and have hospital stays shorter than ever before. We need quick, effective care," explained Thieman, during his presentation. St. Luke's telehealth expansion to community hospitals has helped to retain patients locally, while decreasing the length of stay by a half day. The service has also improved patient satisfaction scores, which are often accompanied by increased participation by patients in the management of their care, according to Thieman. Another benefit of telehealth to rural hospitals, touted Thieman, is improving physician recruitment and retention opportunities. In rural communities, physicians often find themselves to be perpetually on-call, a deterrent to providers considering rural life. However, knowing that he or she can be covered during the evenings by telemedicine can help to remove this barrier. Thieman attributed partial success of the program to site visits that helped sell the program to providers and administrators. An additional innovation is that St. Luke's regularly reviews records for patients who come into the emergency department to see if they could have been kept in the local setting instead, then uses the data to fine-tune the program. For more information about how to expand your telehealth program, contact HTRC at 877-643-HTRC.

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