Just like a classic vinyl record or a favorite retro movie, some things never go out of style. In the world of telehealth, our Telehealth Resource Centers (TRCs) have been curating and updating valuable tools for years…so, if you haven’t browsed our resource library in a while, now’s the perfect time for a trip down memory lane.

This “oldies but goodies” collection is packed with timeless insights and up-to-date information that can help providers and patients alike navigate the ever-evolving telehealth landscape:

 

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SEARCH 2023 | The National Telehealth Research Symposium is scheduled for November 7-9 at the Philadelphia Convention Center in Philadelphia, PA.

More information about registration and the agenda can be found at https://searchsociety.org/search2023.

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Call for Abstracts Open until July 10!

Just in case, if you, your team, or other research colleagues would be interested in submitting a specific project abstract for consideration, the SEARCH 2023 Call for Research Abstracts is open until July 10.

Abstracts are blind reviewed and then selected for Poster and Oral Presentations as well as for featured and educational sessions. Abstracts which include a cardiothoracic focus may also be considered by the American Heart Association for their Scientific Sessions event immediately following the SEARCH 2023 event.

This is the link for additional details and guidance for abstract submissions: https://searchsociety.org/search2023/abstracts/#

Abstracts will be selected for Poster and Oral Presentations. Focus categories include, but are not limited to: Research, Policy, Education, Administration, and State of the Art. Priority will be given to abstracts that demonstrate measurable improvement in policy or practice, have rigorous methodological approaches, and/or show innovation in advancing the field.

Submissions are due July 10, 2023 at 11:59pm CT.

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Sometime later, with all the thought provoking research projects out there and ongoing work through the pandemic, the TRI wanted to host a telehealth research series. They reached out to the IDHI and the SCTRC and together created a new event series, Going Digital: Innovations to Enhance Research. Over a period of three weeks in the fall of 2021, the events covered “All the basics: Digital health research,” “Mobile applications: Real-world examples,” and “Digital Tools and Wearables: Real-world examples.”

Now, with the establishment of the Rural Telehealth Evaluation Center and with the ongoing exciting work being done at the IDHI and TRI, efforts are currently underway (with the SCTRC at the helm) to create a new quarterly series as an amalgamation of the previous events. Currently, the SCTRC is recruiting speakers and planning dates with TRI. We’re looking to go live late Spring 2022 and some of the topics we’re hoping to cover at the onset include evaluations of the relationship between telehealth service delivery and U.S. hospital financial performance, especially in rural hospitals.  The overall goal of the proposed evaluation is to examine associations between adoption of telehealth and measures of hospital financial performance, using operating margin and patient revenue per discharge.

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PRESS RELEASE

For more information, contact:
Elizabeth Krupinski, PhD
Vice President/Secretary
Society for Education and the
Advancement of Research in Connected Health
info@searchsociety.org

SEARCH Hosts 6th Annual National Telehealth Research Symposium

LITTLE ROCK AR., – October 13, 2021 – The Society for Education and the Advancement of Research and Connected Health (SEARCH) will be hosting the sixth annual National Telehealth Research Symposium November 8-10, 2021.

The National Telehealth Research Symposium connects health researchers, academicians and visionaries in telehealth and telemedicine to share findings and foster partnerships. These goals are more relevant today, in the pandemic’s digital world, than ever before – with the U.S. seeing a 154% increase in telehealth visits during the first quarter of 2020, according to the CDC.

“Patients and providers have realized from the COVID pandemic that telemedicine is a viable and important complement and even alternate in many cases to traditional in-person care.” said Elizabeth Krupinski, Vice President and Co-Founder of SEARCH. “However, there is still lots of room to optimize and better integrate or synergize telehealth into healthcare systems and environments. SEARCH is the place to find out how people are doing this.”

At the virtual symposium, attendees will hear from nationally-recognized leaders in telehealth and healthcare including Elise Sweeny Anthony, Executive Director of Policy at ONC; Hari Eswaran, Professor at UAMS Institute for Digital Health & Innovation; Keith Kanel, Chief Medical Officer for the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative; and Wakina Scott, Director of the Health Resources and Services Administration.

“Attendees learn first-hand from those doing research about state-of-the-art telehealth topics,” said Krupinski. “Keynote speakers provide broad perspectives on telehealth from funding to policy to lessons learned.”

Throughout the three-day event, panels will cover a variety of topics on telehealth including research infrastructure in academic medical centers, research tools, methods & policy, equity, education and more.

Interested parties can learn more and register online at = http://searchsociety.org/search2021/.

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About SEARCH: The Society for Education and the Advancement of Research in Connected Health (SEARCH) started in 2016 as a small team of academics, researchers and clinical professionals. SEARCH has developed into a society with the goal of promoting connected health programs through the use of evidenced-based research. https://searchsociety.org/about/

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Given the public health emergency of the COVID-19 pandemic, many healthcare providers were in need of safer alternatives to deliver care. One way Associate Professor Tuhin Virmani, MD, Ph.D. and Assistant Professor Mitesh Lotia, M.D. have created safer options for their Parkinson’s patients and research participants, is by delivering care through Telehealth. Dr. Virmani and Dr. Lotia are with the Department of Neurology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) and part of a team of co-investigators researching Parkinson’s disease in patients in rural Arkansas. Due to the rurality of the state, recruiting subjects to be involved in research can be difficult, given most would be required to travel long distances to participate. This obstacle prevents many subjects from making extra visits to UAMS to participate in Parkinson’s disease research.

Now, with the assistance of the South Central Telehealth Resource Center (SCTRC), this group is using telehealth technologies and adapting and modifying motor skill monitoring techniques to use as part of an evaluation for patients with Parkinson’s disease via a remote or digital environment. The initial idea for this project was to see patients virtually from their local healthcare center. This would prevent patients from not only traveling long distances and spending money on the associated costs of travel. Given the additional development of COVID-19 during project development, the project also keeps patients from entering a large hospital where their chance of contracting COVID-19 could increase.

Parkinson’s Research & Telehealth
The main goal for conducting Parkinson’s disease research via telehealth is to give patients in rural Arkansas more of an opportunity to participate in the research and provide them a safer alternative to being able to take part. One way the UAMS Movement Disorders group is working to collect information about each patient is by digitally collecting their handwriting on a tablet and collecting their voice through an audio message they would read aloud. Additionally, a significant portion of a patient’s movement disorders examination can be completed through telehealth video consults as well. Whether patients are at their homes or a local healthcare facility implementing telehealth video consults, it can greatly impact their safety, eligibility to participate, and financial burdens.

While telehealth implementation has been successful, there are still areas of improvement under this study. In using telehealth in patients with Parkinson’s disease, the patient population consists of older adults. Dr. Virmani stated that this population may be less likely to have the equipment, high bandwidth internet connectivity, and technological know-how to participate in telehealth video consults. The patient population in the movement disorders clinic, during COVID-19, led to increased telehealth visits. Most patients were initially participating in their clinical care by means of audio-only visits. Improving comfort with telehealth technology will also be important for larger-scale use.

Another barrier patients have faced since COVID-19 is the inability to have family members at in-person clinic visits. With telemedicine, given the relative ease of family participation at home, patients have had children and grandchildren assist them technologically with visits. Assistance ranges from support with technology set-up and troubleshooting, finding access to wireless broadband connectivity, and setting up their patient-facing Electronic Medical Record (EMR). Dr. Virmani and Dr. Lotia also mentioned that patients who do not already have appropriate wireless connectivity may be unable to shoulder the additional costs to obtain such services, especially in more rural parts of the state, to participate in clinical visits from home.

Telehealth Next Steps
Telehealth is valuable not only for patients who are required to travel long distances to obtain clinical care, but through the research part of this study. It also allows patients to feel empowered by participating in research towards improving care for people with Parkinson’s disease.
Improving broadband coverage across the state is one of the largest needs not only for this study, but also for all patients and providers needing virtual healthcare. Another major need highlighted by the increased dependence on telehealth is the development of of resources for patients to understand more about telehealth, the equipment needed and broadband required to run it as well as troubleshooting resources. Lastly, Dr. Virmani and Dr. Lotia noted that insurance providers allowing physicians to continue to utilize telehealth technology to deliver high quality clinical care in the long term will be important in the future.

Dr. Lotia stated, “Telemedicine needed to happen yesterday, but I’m glad it’s happening today.”

SCTRC and UAMS Movement Disorders Research Group
Dr. Hari Eswaran and Terri Imus, RN, and Aaron Kemp, PhD(c), contribute to the SCTRC team in the Institute for Digital Health & Innovation and are contributing to this collaborative effort. The IDHI SCTRC team is providing advice and consultation to this research team to optimize their use of telehealth technologies and the implementation of clinical research informatics to manage the compilation of data while ensuring the privacy and security of research participant’s private information.

For more information on this research group, please visit the following:
https://tri.uams.edu/news/tri-announces-pilot-awardees-for-biomedical-informatics-studies/

Contributed by: Aaron Kemp, PhD(c), University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

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The opening plenary focused on funding. Dr. Bill England began by discussing the wide range of resources available at HRSA with his presentation, “Telehealth and Research at HRSA. HRSA’s 8 bureaus and offices (Ryan White, Maternal and child health, rural health policy, healthcare systems, etc.) offer many services in several healthcare arenas. In 2019, Health Centers across the nation served 30 million patients. England stated that HRSA is a “grant making” organization and encouraged those in attendance to utilize Grants.gov using the keyword “telehealth.”  HRSA’s total budget before the pandemic was 11 billion, which included $29 million for OAT programs [where the Telehealth Resource Centers (TRCs) fall under]. England discussed TRC regions and national centers (CCHP and TTAC), and touted the CCHP compendium of state laws as a valuable resource. He also lauded the NETRC with their “incredible library” of publications and research. According to England, broadband is the largest impediment to delivery of service to people in their homes and ended by promoting several websites – The new HHS website, telehealth.HHS.gov, (available in Spanish and English) contains a lot of info for providers. He also mentioned two valid vendor directories: Digital Health Directory (ATA) https://www.techhealthdirectory.com/ and University of Arizona/SWTRC telemedicine and telehealth service provider director https://telemedicine.arizona.edu/servicedirectory.

Dr. Roxanne Jensen followed with her presentation, “Cancer Care Deliver and Telehealth Research: Post-Pandemic Priorities.” She stated that research at the National Cancer Institute within NIH focuses on 3 areas: Healthcare assessment, health systems and interventions, and outcomes. According to Jensen, the best resource for NIH grants is at their website, https://grants.nigh.gov/grants/guide/.  She mentioned the IMPACT Consortium as a research highlight, with the goal of the program being to accelerate the clinical adoption of integrated systems, to monitor patient-reported symptoms and provide decision support.

Regarding patient/provider telehealth, Jensen asked, what happens next? Their next steps are to foster and accelerate areas of telehealth research in cancer care delivery using new tools, utilizing methodological approaches and using available technology. In June, the institute performed a portfolio analysis of active grants and found they mostly fell in 3 categories: supportive care, psychosocial, and preventative. And in July, they sent out RFI to identify gaps and needs. Here’s what they identified: who is accessing telehealth, what services are best suited for telehealth, what are the outcomes of in-person vs. telehealth.

Penny Mohr from Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) was the last to speak in the plenary with her presentation on, “Post-pandemic Digital Health: A Perspective From the Patient-centered Outcomes Research Institute.” Mohr called engagement the “hallmark” of PCORI research and discussed examples of what they’re looking for. Early on in pandemic, PCORI funded enhancements to existing awards, those with existing infrastructure as well as a targeted announcement for target areas, specifically adaptations to healthcare delivery. She closed by discussing a current ongoing study that is looking at 110 primary care practices and the effectiveness of telehealth among their 205k patients. Specifically, they’re looking at three different types: in-person, telehealth, and a hybrid of the two.

After a quick break, Dr. Elizabeth Krupinski discussed human factors in research: examining social, biological, psychological, and physical components that influence design, development and operation products or systems. The goal of identifying human factors is to optimize improved outcomes in telemedicine. “It’s a process,” Krupinski said. It’s not a one-time thing – analyze, design, evaluation… rinse and repeat. She discussed the tech acceptance model where perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use is a determining factor in whether or not people are going to use telemedicine. She listed things to look at: patient/clinician dynamics, organizational factors, environmental factors – “critically important” – not just broadband, but how the tech integrates into what you’re wanting to achieve. Krupinski warned that when looking at RPM devices, you shouldn’t just look at them for what they can do but how well it’s suited to your patient population. She closed her presentation with some tips… conduct a meta-analysis, conduct surveys/questionnaires, conduct a task analysis. Make contextual inquiries: observe behavior, catalog behaviors, look at what people see as important, ask questions.

From there, attendees were offered three back to back sessions with two tracks each where panels of professionals conducted ten minute flash presentations with Q/A and discussion at the end:

Session 1

• Track A: Models of Virtual Care and Cost Analysis
  • Virtual vs Traditional Care Settings for Low Acuity Urgent Conditions: An Economic Analysis of Cost and Utilization Using Claims Data, Tim Lovell
  • A Generative Co-design Framework for Virtual Care Innovation, Dr. Marissa Bird
  • Real World Application of Telehealth Economic Evaluation Framework, Dr. Alison Curfman
• Track B: Telehealth in the Time of COVID
  • Virtual Urgent Care: From Hurricanes to Pandemics, Dr. Kathy Wibberly
  • Remote Patient Monitoring for COVID19 Patients After ED Discharge, Dr. Ahmad Aalam
  • Rapid Implementation of an Interprofessional 1-800-COVID19 Hotline Call Center to Support a Public Health Crisis, Dr. Kevin Sexton

Session 2

• Track A: Emergency Care and Management
  • What Drives Greater Assimilation of Telestroke in Emergency Departments?, Dr. Lori Uscher-Pines
  • The Impact of PICU to ED Telemedicine on Changes in Severity of Illness, Dr. Elizabeth Dorwart
  • Ophthalmology Residents as in Situ Telemedicine Extenders in the Emergency Department During the COVID19 Surge, Dr. Jessica Fleischer-Black
• Track B: SPROUT Update and SPROUT Initiatives with guest speakers Dr. John Chuo, Dr. Alison Curfman, Brooke McSwain, and Dr. Christina Olson

Session 3

• Track A: Education and Innovation
  • Integration of a Checklist to Assess Telehealth Etiquette in an Online Training Program, Dr. Beverly W. Henry
  • Using the ECHO Model to Address the Needs of HealthCare Professionals During an Emerging Threat, Jessica Leffelman
  • Utilizing Emergency Medical Technicians as Telehealth Facilitators in Addressing Changes in Condition for Home-based Primary Care Patients, A. Camille McBride
• Track B: Obstetric, Neonatal, and Pediatric Interventions
  • A Qualitative Analysis of the Impact of Videoconferencing with the Premature Infant on Breast Milk Expression, Dr. Adrienne Hoyt-Austin
  • Evaluation of a Telemedicine Program Managing High-Risk Pregnant Women with Pre-Existing Diabetes, Dr. Yi-Shan Sung
  • An Investigation of the Efficacy of the Telepractice Service Delivery Model as Compared to the In-Person Service Delivery Model Using a Phonemic Awareness Intervention with Head Start Preschoolers, Dr. Pamela Storey

After the rapid fire presentations from a wide variety of professionals across the public health and healthcare spectrum, time was allotted for attendees to view a new day’s worth of interesting and noteworthy poster sessions on an array of topics: RPM pediatric palliative care, developing a great lit review manuscript, patient/physician perspectives on adult and pediatric neurology telemedicine, post-discharge intervention for stroke caregivers, developing a continuous virtual monitoring program, telemental health in-person versus in video, EMT perspectives on telehealth care delivery model serving homebound older adults, using telemedicine for retinopathy in a level 2 NICU, and teledermatology at large safety-net hospitals.

Dr. Krupinski came back for the day’s last virtual assembly presentation, “Getting Informed Consent Within Telemedicine.” She discussed all the opportunities telehealth presents: improved quality, access, and research… faster recruitment which accelerates trial participant access… improved participant retention and greater control. Telehealth reduces attrition: texts, RPM, and video appointments are a “much more efficient manner” than the traditional model. Krupinski noted that most institutions do not require IRB consent or approval for standard of care situations… however, prospective studies do require prior approval. “It all depends on what sort of telemedicine you’re doing,” she said. Remote consent vs. in person consent often removes the face to face explanations that naturally comes in a standard situation. Is telehealth the intervention or enabler or platform? It’s important to distinguish. Challenges in all scenarios and multi-site studies “exacerbates” challenges: grants, funding sources, timelines and logistics are likely to differ and be impacted. Krupinski listed some study elements to be considered when dealing with the IRB: technology, regulatory/reimbursement, design/initiation, implementation/sustainability. She closed with some things to think about:

• Much could be solved if telehealth wasn’t considered different than standard treatment of care
• Telehealth needs to be considered as just another tool in delivery of healthcare
• Researchers need to frame protocols to using telehealth isn’t different that standard of care

The day ended the same as the day before with a networking table (i.e. virtual breakout room), Moving Telehealth Research Forward: Meet the SPROUT-CTSA Network Topic Working Groups hosted by Dr. John Chuo.

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Dr. Leslie Morland continued to push the event pass the starting line with her plenary talk, Virtual Mental Health Care in the Veterans Health Administration: An Immediate Response to COVID-19, which was all the more pertinent since it was Veteran’s Day. Morland acknowledged that with all the rapid changes due to the Public Health Emergency and the rush to telehealth, there was “no going back” when it comes to technology in healthcare. Since the pandemic, through evaluation and with an 11-fold increase in video visits and a 5-fold increase in phone visits by June of this year, the VA discovered their clients felt little to no difference between video visits versus in person visits. Phone only visits are just as comparable due to the overall simplicity versus using a smart device. In closing, Morland declared that “teletherapy is very much going to outlive this pandemic.”

After the plenary talk, the poster session began with an array of interesting and worthy research topics: Teledermatology triage cost savings in urban settings; Clinical telehealth vs telehealth as a health delivery system tool; Bedside telemedicine during a pandemic; Opioid treatment; Reducing NICU stay; and Evaluating telehealth access disparities at a pediatric clinic during the pandemic.

The last scheduled presentation of the day was a panel, Social Determinants and Health Equity in Telehealth: A Fireside Chat, with Dr. Kenny Kronforst, Jennie Joseph, and Dr. Jennifer Reneker. Dr. Kronforst opened by outlining steps that were taken in Illinois during the early days of the pandemic and the deluge of data that came from the virtual-sphere. In response to this and to make the most of it, the Telehealth Datamart program was created to synthesize and validate the data. The preliminary data showed a lower percent of completed visits among non-English speakers and lower video visits among Latinx patients. Next steps include mapping to other indexes and surveying providers and parents. Kronfrost was followed by Jennie Joseph, a midwife who’s worked with high risk mothers to bridge the gap of maternal morbidity. Her vision is that all women have access, connections, knowledge, and empowerment, “building a movement to birth a more just and loving world.” Maternal morbidity is much higher among black women and looking at social determinants provide relevance, but Joseph emphasized that it’s important to understand that “materno toxicity” can surface anywhere. With the shift to telehealth, Joseph was able to maintain care while also maintaining client satisfaction. Since March of this year, out of 180 women, only 2 were born pre-term. Dr. Jennifer Reneker was the last to present, and her project focused on diagnosis and treatment of concussions using virtual reality (VR). Working in Mississippi where sports are a huge part of the state’s culture, she noted the lack of state requirements for certified trainers or professionals to be present at sporting events where many others states do have such a mandate. Reneker also noted that in light of this fact, the state’s telehealth capacities were “exceptional.” In 2017, they established Heads Up Mississippi, a program to provide comprehensive prevention, diagnosis, and research. Part of this program was the development of a VR tool in order to diagnose and research concussed participants. VR can engage users through an immersive atmosphere, create novel environments, continuously measure movements (e.g. eye tracking), and analytics can be sent to a computer where a clinician can synchronously or asynchronously meet up with the patient in the VR metaverse. After their presentations, the three professionals discussed their projects and disparities at large.

The day ended with two networking tables (i.e. virtual breakout rooms), Stories from the field: pediatric telehealth challenges, success, and future directions hosted by Dr. David McSwain, and Conducting multi-site telemedicine trials research: challenges and solutions hosted by Dr. Jonathan Neufeld.

For more information about the conference or the SEARCH Society, visit here: https://searchsociety.org/

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Early Bird Registration 

The South Central Telehealth Resource Center is pleased to announce the 4th annual South Central Telehealth Forum (#SCTF2016) on August 1-2, 2016. The event is being held at the Sheraton Music City Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee.

Early Bird Registration is now open!

If you want to BUILD programs and IMPROVE patient outcomes, don’t miss #SCTF2016!

#SCTF2016 will help professionals connect and collaborate on topics related to quality-driven healthcare via telemedicine and mHealth.

Topics include:

• mHealth/Remote Patient Monitoring
• Research
• Trauma
• Community/Schools
• Reimbursement
• Legislation
• Real-World Academic, Hospital and Clinic Examples

We look forward to meeting you in Nashville!

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