News

-mHealth Intelligence

“The Hallways to Health Act, first proposed in 2016, would help school districts launch telehealth partnerships with community health centers and create a telehealth demonstration project.

Two Michigan senators have re-introduced a bill that aims to boost telehealth services in schools by connecting them with community health centers and providing more avenues for reimbursement.

The Hallways to Health Act, co-sponsored by Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters, would also create a demonstration project to expand telehealth access in schools and in medically underserved areas.”

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Deadline: February 13, 2017
Download the packet here.

The South Carolina Telehealth Alliance (SCTA) has allocated funds for five $20,000 awards for
telehealth1-based pilot projects that aim to accelerate the adoption, utilization, and investigation of
telehealth interventions across South Carolina. This funding is intended to provide assistance to
South Carolina clinicians and researchers in their efforts to develop, implement, and evaluate
telehealth solutions. Preference will be given to applications for projects that have 1) the potential
to be scalable and sustainable, 2) save costs while improving care, 3) are in line with the healthcare
needs of South Carolina, and 4) aim to improve the equitable distribution of telehealth services
across South Carolina.

-MHealth Intelligence

A telemedicine program born at the University of New Mexico is set to become a national model for pushing healthcare into remote and underserved regions.

The Senate on Tuesday approved by a 97-0 vote S. 2873, the Expanding Capacity for Health Outcomes (ECHO) Act. The bill places UNM’s five-year-old groundbreaking Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) on a national stage, setting the wheels in motion for a national network of hub-and-spoke telemedicine platforms to provide education and collaboration opportunities for healthcare providers in hard-to-reach areas.

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-David Craig, MD

Welcome to the second half of our series on MACRA! We’re going to spend this whole post on what MACRA means for telehealth, so if you need to catch up on the basics of what the new law is and what it means for Medicare reimbursement in general, please check out part one first and then meet me back here.

If you’re already up to speed on MACRA 101, though, and you’re ready for a nitty-gritty deep-dive on what the new legislation might mean for telehealth and especially for telehealth reimbursement, then let’s get started.

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–Springs Memorial Hospital

(October 6, 2016) —Springs Memorial Hospital will soon launch a critical care telemedicine program to enhance care for patients in the intensive and critical care units (ICU and CCU) of the hospital. This new service will build upon the quality patient care now delivered by hospitalists, pulmonologists, specialists and nurses in the Springs Memorial ICU and CCU.

On October 11, 2016 at 1:30 p.m., the hospital will Go Live with this extra layer of care in which highly trained intensivist physicians and critical care specialists support care 24 hours a day, 7 days a week using telecommunication and other technologies. With this new service, Springs will enhance patient safety while also meeting a best practice standard to have intensivist physicians monitoring ICU patients around the clock.

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