A five year, $1.6 million in grant funding from HRSA’s Office for the Advancement of Telehealth to address health disparities within underserved populations in rural communities was awarded to Drake University’s College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences https://.drake.edu/cphs.
The College is partnering with Certintell, https://centintell.com, a telehealth company based in Des Moines. The company was founded by Drake alumnus Ben Lefever, and Tabula Rasa HealthCare (TRHC) https://www.tebularasahealthcare.com to improve health outcomes for underserved rural patients using a remote approach.
The collaboration will use TRHC’s Medwise® technology to review medications and monitor patients remotely through an existing call center at Drake University. Students will perform clinical rotations through the Medwise call center and assist with medication risk assessments.
Specifically, the initiative will focus on improving control of hypertension, diabetes, and high cholesterol. By using telehealth coaches, medication risk assessments will be done by pharmacists in the call center. In addition, Drake’s Master of Science in Health Informatics and Analytics Program will collaborate on data analysis and research.
A unique aspect of the project is the use of remote patient monitoring technology to provide information on clinic visits. Ultimately, the hope is that these efforts to reduce problems in patients, will help prevent falls and injuries, ED visits, and hospitalizations.