Greetings Northwest Region:

Navigating the Telehealth Neighborhood: A Guide to Telehealth Access for Digital Navigators

The Northwest Regional Telehealth Resource Center is offering a new course:  “Navigating the Telehealth Neighborhood: A Guide to Telehealth Access for Digital Navigators.” This course can be found on the NRTRC online training portal and is free and open to the public. The training serves as an introduction to telehealth for anyone assisting a client, patient or loved one through the telehealth process. Visit https://nrtrc.catalog.instructure.com/ to register and take the course.

Free Virtual TeleBehavioral Health Summit The TeleBehavioral Health Summit (TeleBH Summit) is a free two-day, virtual conference, solely focused on today’s emerging topics in digital and TeleBehavioral Health care.CME's and a certificate of completion are available. Questions? Email bhinstitute@uw.edu.

At-A-Glance: Medicare Telehealth & Connected Health Waivers

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has released a fact sheet on what to expect at the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency. The guide includes sections ontelehealth services in Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP, and private health insurance. Also, The Center for Connected Health Policy (CCHP) has created an At-A-Glance chart, "Medicare telehealth and Connected health waivers post-PHE." The chart consolidates CMS fact sheets that detail the status of the temporary telehealth guidance post-PHE.  Telehealth Codes List for Medicare: Updated to show codes good through 2023.

Check out NRTRC’s Updated Resources!   Critical Access Telehealth Guide The Chronic Care Management and Principal Care Management Implementation Document Telehealth Services and Codes table Remote Physiologic and Therapeutic Monitoring Cheat Sheet

News You Can Use

Telemedicine Reduces Hospital Transfers: University of California-Davis finds that telemedicine reduces hospital transfers for very ill kids at rural, community emergency departments. Peer Recovery Coach via Telehealth: Researchers looked at records for 917 patients who engaged with a peer recovery coach via telehealth after they were discharged from an emergency department for opioid use. The investigation focused on one Indiana-based hospital system that included six hospitals located in cities and seven that had rural Critical Access Hospital designations. Of the findings to rural patients; living in a strictly rural area was associated with an 80 percent higher rate of successful follow-up.  Call for Manuscripts from Telehealth and Medicine Today (THMT): Real World Outcomes and Cost Efficiencies from Telehealth Implementation and Research. Building robust research repositories and study datasets must be amassed for health policy leaders, regulators, and economists to gauge the real world impact of virtual and digital health modalities of care.THMT is creating a special issue collection of short case reports, technical reports, pilot studies and clinical or marketing research results to demonstrate the cost efficiencies of this growing field. Details click here. Deadline: May1, 2023

Upcoming Events & Webinars

NCTRC Webinar: Leveraging Telemedicine to Eliminate Outcome Disparities for Rural-born Newborns: This session will teach learners about a novel approach to providing critical assessments and care for neonates after difficult deliveries using telemedicine. March 16, noon, MDT.   Telehealth Hui: Do you serve homeless communities? Join us for a special presentation by Dr. Ka'ohimanu Dang Akiona about caring for these vulnerable communities and hear about the challenges in implementing and ensuring appropriate use of telehealth in these environments. This session is an introduction to a series of discussions aimed at enhancing care and support for the ALICE/Homeless populations. March 28, 4:00 p.m. MDT Avoid Unintended Bias: How to Responsibly Use AI/Machine Learning to Address Health Disparities: Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are increasingly being used in healthcare settings with applications in decision support, patient care, and disease management. If the underlying data on which AI depends is inherently biased or lacks a diverse representation of populations, the algorithms cannot produce accurate outputs and will further widen the gap of equitable care. April 11, 2023 11:00 a.m -noon MST NCTRC Webinar: Social Determinants of Health and Value-Based Pay: Value-Based Pay efforts are increasingly acknowledging the importance of patient social complexity in addition to traditional focus on clinical complexity and utilization. This webinar will discuss how social determinants of health screening and action by providers are being measured and tied in to payer and health system approaches in order to drive equity and sustainability in their programs. April 20, noon MDT

Events to Bookmark in 2023

HIMSS 2023: The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society conference unites thought leaders, disruptors and changemakers representing every sector across the global health information and technology spectrum. Join peers and experts to develop, strengthen and learn from the relationship of health and technology. Continue your journey to better global health during this unique conference experience. April 17-21   2023 Wyoming Power of Rural Healthcare Conference: The conference is designed for all levels of healthcare professionals, volunteers and interested community members to provide information and resources on meeting the needs of rural and frontier communities through evidence, partnership and quality. April 17-19 The TeleBehavioral Health Summit (TeleBH Summit): A free two-day, virtual conference, solely focused on today’s emerging topics in digital and TeleBehavioral Health care.CME's and a certificate of completion are available. May 9 -10, 2023 Virtual NRHA 2023: The National Rural Health Association and rural health leaders from across the country will meet to help raise the standard for rural health care. This conference will offer more than 80 innovative, practical and cost-saving sessions. May 16–19 in San Diego. 7th Annual ConVerge2Xclerate (#ConV2X) AI & Tech in Telehealth and Medicine: ConV2X is produced by Partners in Digital Health (PDH), facilitating global inter-connectivity to redefine the future of healthcare to accelerate the education, investigation, use, and scale required in the field. PDH harnesses the creative energies of industry pioneers and researchers, supported by the scientific excellence that is reflected in its leading open access peer reviewed journal Telehealth and Medicine Today (THMT). September 22, 2023 New Orleans, LA. Call for Speakers. APHA 2023: The American Public Health Association will hold its annual meeting and expo, Nov. 12–15 in Atlanta.

Do you provide health care or services via telehealth?   NRTRC's telehealth services finder is available to help patients and providers find in-person and telehealth care. Please review your clinic's information or complete the 2023 intake form to ensure that information on your practice and your services is up-to-date. Click here to update the information on your practice.

Telehealth Triumphs

The NRTRC received a Technical Assistance (TA) request from a patient residing in the state of Washington. The potential patient was desperately seeking a telehealth provider. This individual reached out to the staff at the NRTRC to inquire about helping them find a provider they could visit with via telehealth. NRTRC contacted the patient and shared the Find Telehealth application located on our website at https://findtelehealth.nrtrc.org/mapapplication. The patient responded with gratitude and excitement as this was just the tool they needed to find a telehealth provider.

Northwest Regional State Telehealth Website Links Alaska Collaborative for Telehealth and Telemedicine Idaho Department of Health and Welfare Montana Telehealth Alliance Telehealth Alliance of Oregon Utah Telehealth Network Washington State Telehealth Collaborative Washington State Department of Health Wyoming Telehealth Network

Telehealth Resources Telehealth Tools and Resources: Find up-to-date telehealth tools & resources. Professional Development: Visit NRTRC's catalog of online telehealth training courses. The Telehealth Resource Centers have gathered resources specific to Federally Qualified Health Centers. Examples include a Critical Access Hospital Telehealth Guide and a webinar on Telehealth Essentials for FQHCs. Emergency Declarations: Utah is the only state in the Northwest Region still under an emergency declaration because of the COVID pandemic. It is set to expire when the national PHE expires.  Updated legislation and regulations: Keep up with regulations and proposed legislation for the states of the Northwest Region. Research: current research opportunities, research articles and survey results.

Grant Funding Opportunities Refer to the funding page on the NRTRC website for updated grant opportunities.

PHE Coming to an End May 11, 2023 The Biden administration has announced that the COVID-19 public health emergency will end on May 11, 2023.  Although many of the waivers introduced during the pandemic will stay in place through Dec. 21, 2024, two waivers will immediately go away. The HIPAA notification of enforcement discretion during PHE will end, as will the prescribing of controlled substances to patients for whom prescribers have not conducted an in-person medical evaluation.

NRTRC on YouTube NRTRC’s 2022 Annual Telehealth Conference video sessions are free to view. If you were unable to attend, or want to watch your favorite sessions again, visit NRTRC’s YouTube page.

Northwest Regional Telehealth Resource Center “This publication was made possible by grant number UiUTH42531-01 from the Office for the Advancement of Telehealth, Health Resources and Services Administration, DHHS”