Source: SCETV

Source:  Southern Carolina Alliance

For LaShawna Nicholson, the journey of motherhood has been full of joyful moments.

“Chance is probably the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Nicholson said. “He’s smart, he’s funny, he’s busy. He keeps me on my toes.”

As a first-time mother, Nicholson said she had a lot of questions throughout her pregnancy and after the birth of her son Chance, who is now two years old. Nicholson said she was grateful for the support of Debbie Brush, a registered nurse with Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System’s Nurse Family Partnership Program. The partnership program connects mothers to a registered nurse who guides the mother through her pregnancy and into the first two years of their child’s life.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, nurses would visit mothers at their homes. But since the start of the pandemic, nurses have used telehealth to connect with mothers.

“With telehealth, it’s been a life-saver for us,” Brush said. “It definitely has opened the doors for us to be able to keep the lines of communication open and to give (mothers) the information that they need, even though we are not able to be in the home.”

Throughout the past year, Brush and Nicholson have connected through Zoom calls to discuss Chance’s developmental milestones. Brush has offered advice on everything from language development to potty training and nap schedules. Nicholson said it helped to know that she could call any time if she had questions.

“I wish everybody could go through what I went through. It was awesome, she was awesome,” Nicholson said. “It was a good experience.”

Source:  SCETV

A Charleston resource center for people experiencing homelessness uses telehealth to provide medical care to one of the state’s most vulnerable populations.

More than 4,000 people in the state of South Carolina are experiencing homelessness. In the Charleston area, there are more than 400 homeless people: veterans, seniors, individuals and families.

“It’s really hard to get out of homelessness,” said Marie Elana Roland, CEO of The Navigation Center.

People typically live in “a crisis mode,” Roland said, because it is very difficult to escape homelessness. But The Navigation Center, located in downtown Charleston at 529 Meeting Street, provides food, housing support, employment services, hygiene care, and medical care through telehealth with doctors from the Medical University of South Carolina.

“Telehealth is an amazing technology for us,” Roland said. “They can just walk in and meet with MUSC and start their diagnosis. It’s a way for them to start getting healthy, so that they can make the right decisions and the right choices for their next steps.”

Layne Walker, a medical student at MUSC, and the first director of operations at The Navigation Center, said with the help of student volunteers, and telehealth technology, doctors are able to treat a variety of patient complaints all without leaving their office at MUSC.

Using digital equipment including a stethoscope and otoscope, the healthcare provider located at MUSC can hear and see throughout the exam.

“It’s as if the provider was in the room,” Walker said.

Cristin Swords Adams, DO, MPH, and Assistant Professor for the MUSC Department of Family Medicine, said providing care through telehealth allows her to bring medical care to patients who might not otherwise seek out care.

“This is an often stigmatized and marginalized population and often there’s a lot of distrust with the medical system,” Adams said. “We’re providing this care at a place where they’ve already developed relationships and they have trust.”

Source:  SCETV

Kathy Schwarting, CEO of Palmetto Care Connections, says data can help lead policy change and ensure that reimbursements for #telehealth services continue beyond the #coronavirus pandemic. Palmetto Perspectives, SCETV’s community engagement-focused series, recently featured a panel discussion exploring #healthcare disparities in South Carolina. During that episode, Schwarting responded to this question: “How do we make sure that the broader scope of telehealth-based services like prenatal care and home newborn assessments – how can they be continued as we move out from under the pandemic?” To watch the entire episode: https://www.scetv.org/watch/palmetto-perspectives

Today the Center for Connected Health Policy (CCHP) has launched its newly redesigned website with a revamped telehealth policy database tool (called ‘Policy Finder’).  Historically, CCHP has released twice a year (Spring and Fall) updates to its “State Telehealth Laws and Reimbursement Policies” report in the form of a PDF report document that details all the telehealth policies for all 50 states and the District of Columbia.  Over the years this has evolved to include an update to CCHP’s online database of the same information.  The information in the State Telehealth Laws and Reimbursement Report has now transitioned exclusively to a new and improved Policy Finder tool.  This online database tool allows CCHP to easily update each state’s information on a more frequent basis instead of updating only in the Spring and Fall.  Additionally, while there will no longer be a single PDF report with every state, the information from the online database can now be exported for each state into a PDF document using the most current information available on CCHP’s website. Don’t worry, you can still view our findings through our executive summary, infographic, and at-a-glance summary chart.

The new website also includes new features, such as: 

• The ability to compare the policy of any of the topic areas for any two states
• COVID-19 state actions have now been integrated into each state policy page
• View color coded maps recapping policy trends by state across topic areas such as:
  • Medicaid reimbursement for live video, store and forward and remote patient monitoring
  • states with private payer laws
• Two new topic areas have been added under the Professional Requirements Category:
  • Licensure Compacts
  • Professional Boards Standards

This transition away from the cumbersome 500-page report over to exclusively using CCHPs new policy finder tool will result in more timely policy information that is easier for users to navigate and understand.  In case you do need help navigating the new information, view this quick tutorial on how the new Finder tool can be easily utilized.

Source: ABC Channel 15