In response to COVID-19, the U.S has seen a dramatic expansion in the use of telehealth. Since legislative and regulatory changes were made are not permanent, policymakers and healthcare providers must consider the investment and changes needed to sustain access via telehealth following the pandemic and in the future.
The Bipartisan Policy Center’s (BPC) https://bipartisanpolicy.org virtual event What’s Next for Telehealth: Sustaining and Expanding Access After COVID-19. Bill Hoagland, Senior Vice President of BPC, explained that telehealth claims have increased over 300% when used to provide healthcare. He mentioned that BPC’s Rural Health Task Force visited a number of rural areas to talk to others on the difference telehealth has made in their lives, in their communities, and how to improve technologies to deliver telehealth even more effectively.
Senator Angus King (I-ME) speaking at the BPC event discussed how COVID-19 accelerated the expansion of telehealth during the pandemic which was an important development. However, right now broadband as yet is not available in all rural areas and although expansion of broadband is expensive, important conversations need to center on broadband expansion.
Senator King as panel moderator along with the panelists discussed the future of telehealth along with a discussion on mental health services. Scott Oxley, President, Northern Light Acadia Hospital, https://northernlighthealth.org located in Eastern Maine is particularly interested in working with communities on mental health issues and services.
Scott Oxley reports that his hospital’s goal is to deal with the huge swell needed for mental health services especially with the ongoing opioid crisis. In order to accomplish more effective use of mental and behavior healthcare, there is the need to expand the workforce beyond the borders of Maine.
Located in a small town in Maine, Dr. Lisa Miller, Family Medicine Physician, at Western Maine Health, http://www.mainehealth.org, enthusiastically endorses the use pf telehealth in communities as telehealth can be life-saving which has resulted in both broadband and telehealth being a huge win for rural communities.
Dena McDonough, PA-C, Associate Director of the Health Project, BPC notes https://bipartisanpolicy.org, that it is essential that legislative, regulatory barriers, and reimbursement issues be addressed to keep telehealth viable. She pointed to the need to move patients to home care and have conversations on the use of effective services forecasted to be used in the future.
From the rural health prospectus, Jennifer P. Lundblad, PhD, President & CEO Stratis Health, member of the Rural Policy Research Institute (RUPRI), and Adjunct Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota School of Public Health, https://stratishealth.org, said,
“Since telehealth contributes greatly to health in rural communities, we need to look deeply into what is working for medical professionals and patients and what is not working in today’s health environment. This information will enable better information to be available on polices so telehealth can move forward.”
Walter Panzirer, Trustee, Helmsley Charitable Trust, https://helmsleytrust.org, explained how the Trust has invested $450 million in rural communities, and $110 million for the use of telehealth. He pointed out that licensure can be a difficult issue since different rules and forms are available in various states. Hopefully, telehealth will be a long term permanent solution to really help rural areas.
Other suggestions made by the panel to improve care for patients in rural communities, included improving remote home monitoring, devote more time to preventative care, look at quality measures which need to be judged by outcomes, address affordability, provide timely access to care, obtain good data to examine costs and savings involving hardware, provide for faster development of broadband, and find ways to provide more specialty care in rural areas.