Tippah County Hospital (TCH) https://tippahcountyhospital.com, a county owned critical access hospital in Ripley Mississippi includes a Rural Health Clinic (RHC) offering a full set of services and supports to area residents.
Beginning with recommendations resulting from a telehealth assessment and a telehealth stoplight report in 2019, TCH began to implement and expand telehealth by:
- Increasing the use of telemedicine to fill service gaps and access to care
- Enhancing coordination of care by developing a community care coordination plan
- Strengthening the local healthcare delivery system for population health management
Because of TCH’s previous preparation to expand telehealth, the hospital was able to set up telehealth within hours of the COVID-19 shutdown with a Department of Telehealth established as part of the hospital.
Also, the Delta Region Community Health Systems Development (DRCHSD) Program selected TCH to participate in their program and in HRSA’s Federal Office of Rural Health Policy.
The DRCHSD Program helped with the planning, funding, and execution of the telehealth implementation plan including creation of an outreach specialty services clinic which offered additional services via telehealth.
Taking an inclusive approach was important. TCH held group project meetings with key people to enable people to come together and work as a team to help launch the program. TCH also knew that the program would need continual improvement driven by input and feedback.
Having a strong IT Director and Information Technology (IT) Department continues to be instrumental in selecting the array of hardware, software, and equipment that is needed to sustain and expand telehealth. In addition, telehealth was implemented into the medical, surgical, and emergency departments.
Collecting meaningful data for improvement provides the input needed to continue to streamline and improve services. TCH collects a variety of data, including the number of telehealth visits as compared to other visits, canceled visits, and data obtained from random surveys.
Accomplishments include expanding services that include dealing with pain, treating diabetes effectively, plus providing services pertaining to genetic counseling, geriatrics, infectious diseases, neurology, pulmonary, and psychiatry. However, pain management has resulted in the most outpatient telehealth visits.
Also, other actions such as hiring a fulltime telehealth program manager, expanding telehealth to the medical surgical and swing bed units, and expanding the Intensive Outpatient Psychiatric program have been very effective.
TCH has identified the following next steps to refocus future growth and goals such as exploring options to expand telehealth to include treatment for SUDs, partnering with schools and area factories to offer telehealth consultative services in urgent and emergency situations, and reducing the number of transfers from the ED to nearby tertiary facilities by increasing the use of teleconsults with specialists