April 2019
TELEHEALTH BEAT
HTRC's monthly telehealth bullein
High-risk pregnancy ECHOs
Missouri's rate of deaths due to pregnancy and childbirth is one of the highest in the country. Missouri’s rate is 28.5 deaths per 100,000 live births which is on par with Belize according to the CIA’s World Factbook . But two ECHOs in Missouri are working to close the gap: the High Risk OB Partnership for Excellence (HOPE ECHO) and Challenges in Rural Obstetrics for Women and Neonates (CROWN ECHO).

The Project ECHO telementoring model began in New Mexico and has since spread across the country, connecting primary care providers with teams of specialists to learn from one another and improve care for patients. Show-Me ECHO, Missouri’s ECHO program, has been a leader in delivering ECHOs in the Midwest. The HOPE and CROWN ECHOs connect primary care providers to specialists such as OB/GYNs and neonatologists to share information to help pregnant patients.

CROWN ECHO is designed to help pregnant women living in rural areas get the care that they need and combat the shortage of pregnancy specialists in rural areas. Sixty-seven of Missouri's counties don’t have a single OB/GYN and connecting primary care physicians and nurses working in rural areas with pregnancy specialists can increase specialized knowledge in areas that don’t have the resources to hire an OB/GYN.

“Distance is a challenge in practicing medicine in a rural state,” said Daniel Jackson MD, a doctor of maternal and fetal medicine who is on the CROWN ECHO leadership team. “We have to find a way to use technology to bridge that gap and come as close as we can in trying to disseminate sub-specialist knowledge for these increasingly complex patients we’re seeing.”

HOPE ECHO is for women in urban areas who are at a high risk for serious pregnancy complications. Despite geographic closeness to hospitals, women in urban areas still struggle to see specialists because of limited resources.

“The issue is the patients and the women don’t know how to access resources," said Sarah Dickerhoff MSN, RNCC-MNN , a labor and delivery nurse on the HOPE ECHO leadership team. "Maybe they have different struggles with transportation or they work or they don’t have child care or they don’t have insurance... A big focus for the urban ECHO is looking at race and the inequality of access to health care based on social determinants [of health]."

Topics have included substance use, preeclampsia and gestational diabetes.ECHOs are designed to be accessible for more than just doctors. Nurses, physicians assistants, pharmacists and social workers have also participated in the ECHOs to learn more about what they can do to protect women's health. ECHOs are designed to be casual and conversational with case studies from attending doctors and discussions with the group.

“It’s a very informal session, said Jackson. “It’s not a stuffy, white-coat kind of thing. It’s kind of what you would expect if you got a bunch of physicians who take care of pregnant women and doctors and nurses and social workers and all got around the table for dinner.” 

EVENTS
Use of Telehealth to Increase Access to Dental Care
HRSA Webinar
May 2, 2019
12-1 p.m. CDT

The Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) invites you to a free webinar on using telehealth to increase access to dental care. Topics will include reducing oral health disparities in rural communities through dental therapy and telehealth innovations and a discussion of the results of the Virtual Dental Home system developed in California and now deployed in multiple states. This webinar is part of HRSA’s Telehealth Learning Webinar Series. The series’ goal is to highlight successful projects/best practices as well as resources to promote and further the use of telehealth technologies for health care delivery, education and health information services. For more information, contact Nancy Rios at  [email protected] .
 
Featured Speakers:
Sarah Wovcha, JD, MPH, Executive Director, Children’s Dental Services
Paul Glassman, DDS, MA, MBA, Professor of Dental Practice Director, Community Oral Health Director, Pacific Center for Special Care, University of the Pacific - Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry
 
Telehealth and the Opioid Crisis
HTRC Webinar
May 7, 2019
12-1 p.m.

Join HTRC for a discussion of the role that telehealth can play to help improve treatment options and prevent substance use disorder.

Upcoming webinars:
June 4 - Direct to consumer: How to vet health providers
July 2 - Preventing provider burnout through telehealth

Distance Counseling: Best Practices in Higher Education
TRC Webinar
May 16, 2019
1-2 p.m. CDT

With the growing opportunities to meet student telebehavioral health needs via technology, HEMHA recently developed distance counseling guidelines. Higher Education Mental Health Alliance (HEMHA) is a consortium of nine partner organizations providing leadership to advance college mental health. Dr. Alessandria will share a roadmap of the guidelines, including benefits, limitations and legal and ethical concerns regarding telemental health services with higher education students. Dr. Long will present practical considerations in implementing distance counseling within an academic medical center setting. He will describe broader health information technology innovations in the higher education setting. Both will include cultural considerations in assisting diverse students across geographies.

Hosted by: Heartland Telehealth Resource Center
Presented by: Dr. Kathryn (Tina) Alessandria & Dr. Larry Long, Jr.

Northeast Kansas Telehealth Meeting
May 21, 2019
Manhattan, Kan.
1-5 p.m. CDT
 
The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), in partnership with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) and the Riley County Health Department, is hosting the Northeast Kansas Telehealth Meeting. Topics will include legislative and regulatory updates, funding opportunities and best practices.
 
 
NEWS
Developmental disabilities ECHO series
Telehealth ROCKS (Rural Outreach for the Children of Kansas) sponsored an ECHO series during the month of April, which is National Autism Awareness Month. The series focused on meeting the needs of individuals with developmental disabilities as they transition from childhood to adulthood. You can access recordings of the sessions by clicking on the links below:


Medicare Advantage now offering increased access to virtual appointments
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has recently expanded telehealth access by allowing private Medicare Advantage plans to pay for virtual consultations. This change will allow more access for beneficiaries in the supplemental insurance program.

In a press release CMS stated that the new final rule will make it more likely that "plans will offer the additional telehealth benefits outside of supplemental benefits, expanding patients’ access to telehealth services from more providers and in more parts of the country than before, whether they live in rural or urban areas."

For more information about telehealth reimbursement, contact HTRC at 877-643-HTRC.