Through the U.S Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Distance learning & Telemedicine (DLT) Grant Program, grants have been awarded to Avera eCARE Emergency to help provide telemedicine equipment for those living in rural communities with populations of 20,000 or less.
Through the DLT grant program, Avera eCARE has been able to buy new equipment such as videoconferencing cameras, microphones, monitors and specialized phones.
In FY 2020, USDA’s DLT grant program awarded more than $985,000 to Avera Health to finance telemedicine software and equipment in order to help out sparsely staffed medical facilities in a 66 county area in the Upper Midwest through Avera Health’s Emergency Telemedicine Project.
Hospitals use Avera eCARE Emergency to support complex emergency cases, provide immediate medical direction, to help emergency transfers, and to complete nursing documentation. During COVID-19, eCARE support has enabled fewer clinicians to be in the room and technology is used to support rural care teams with respiratory therapy access, intubation, and ventilation when needed.
Avera eCARE also received two grant awards from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Wireline Competition Bureau’s COVID-19 Telehealth Program as part of the $157 million authorized by the CARES Act. Grant funding is enabling video laryngoscopes to be purchased for sites so that the larynx can be viewed while conducting intubation to open airways.
Also, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) within CMS, has awarded $8.8 million over three years to Avera eCare. The program is directed to Avera’s Senior Care program which is primarily serving Medicare beneficiaries.
The Senior Program provides geriatric telehealth consults, timely access to the clinical team and specialists as well as provide training to help long term care facility nursing staff. The program also helps address the urgent healthcare needs of both short and long stay residents in nursing facilities especially in isolated rural areas.
Mathematica, a national research company was contracted by CMS to evaluate the program and released their report. According to Deanna Larson, CEO Avera eCARE, “We believe the report reveals the cost savings, clinical impact, and overall effectiveness of telehealth in the senior care setting, since at this time skilled nursing facilities are really depending on telehealth services.”