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Global Partnership for Telehealth

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Tanya Mack

Global Partnership for Telehealth

In January of this year, Forbes magazine ran an article that asked the question: Will 2017 Be the Year of Telemedicine? With the finding solutions to the US healthcare system is in the news daily, telemedicine expansion helps solve some problems of affordability and access and offers the benefits of faster care, convenience and often lower costs.

The field is exploding with interest. Yet, a gap exists between talking about vs. providing telemedicine services. Recently 74% of patients surveyed said they would be open to a virtual telemedicine encounter, yet only 15% of healthcare providers had used telemedicine!  Join telemedicine industry expert, Rena Brewer of the Global Partnership for Telehealth to bring us up to
date on telemedicine and what is happening in this rapidly developing arena.

Telemedicine in Neurology and Beyond

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Tanya Mack

Emory

Dr. Gregory Esper

Telemedicine in Neurology and Beyond

Womens Telehealth CEO, Tanya Mack sat down with Emory Healthcare’s Dr. Gregory Esper.  Gregory Esper, MD, MBA is currently Associate Professor and Vice Chairman of Clinical Affairs for the Department of Neurology, and he also is Director of General Neurology and Neuromuscular Diseases. He serves Emory Healthcare in the capacity as the Director of New Care Models.

Dr. Esper shared his perspective of the role of telemedicine in neurology, as well as how Emory Healthcare is evaluating other areas of need for access to care where telemedicine can be deployed to simultaneously provide greater efficiency for patient and care provider, as well as improving the health of the population served.

 

We talked about how patient information is protected while using this technology, as well as some of the current limitations that confound expansion of telemedicine to the patient’s home on a larger scale.

Throughout the world and US, there is a shortage of neurologists, which is expected to worse, not improve in the coming years. The access is outstripped by the demand, especially in rural areas, where
geographical disparities exist. Georgia has over 100 counties that have no neurologist.

Telemedicine improvements and patient and provider adoption, especially over recent years, has proven that in many cases, reliable remote diagnosis can be made, patient outcomes are positive and costs can be saved.

Treatment of stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, epilepsy and some urgent neuro problems can be
managed via telestroke medicine. In 2016, Emory University opened a remote telemedicine service.
Listen in as Dr. Greg Esper updates us on new developments in telestroke and Emory’s new program.

Maternal Fetal Medicine via Telehealth

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maternal-fetal medicine

Dr. C. Anne Patterson

maternal-fetal medicine

Tanya Mack

Maternal Fetal Medicine via Telehealth

Women’s Telehealth’s Tanya Mack, interviews the company’s CEO and Medical Director, Dr. C. Anne Patterson, discussing maternal-fetal medicine as a specialty, and how they are now able to capitalize on telemedicine technology to deliver high-risk maternity care to a wider patient population.

Maternal fetal medicine is rare sub-specialty of obstetrics which delivers high risk obstetric care. These
specialists manage complex complications of pregnancy such as: multiple gestations, chronic medical
conditions during pregnancy, gestational diabetes and fetal abnormalities. The CDC and March of Dimes both estimate that in 2015 in the US, approximately 1:10 babies in the US are born prematurely.

GA ranks 50/50 for maternal death and 42/50 for infant mortality. Getting access to maternal fetal medicine services is often difficult as there are only about 1200 MFM physicians in the US and most are not located in rural areas.

Clearly, there is a need for many physicians of different specialties in rural areas and maternal-fetal medicine is one of them.  OB practices and hospitals in these areas can engage with Womens Telehealth to be able to help these patients avoid having to spend long travel times in cars to be seen by these needed specialists.  This allows them to stay closer to home and receive care in their local community.

But this solution has value for urban practices as well.  There are very few maternal-fetal specialists nationwide—only ~20 or so in Georgia.  By deploying the Womens Telehealth solution, these city-based groups and hospitals can also provide access to this specialty care for their patients, preventing potential loss of the patient to other facilities/groups in the community that do have maternal-fetal specialists on campus.

Special Guest:

Dr. C. Anne Patterson, CEO/Medical Director, Womens Telehealth

Legal Considerations in Telemedicine

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Bill Boling, Mason Reid

telemedicine

Tanya Mack

Legal Considerations in Telemedicine

This week, Tanya hosted healthcare and telemedicine legal experts, Bill Boling and Mason Reid, of Boling and Company, to talk about legal considerations in telemedicine.

Affordable, quality telemedicine is on almost everyone’s mind! Telemedicine is a tool that is being used more frequently to provide access when and where needed and to decrease costs. One analyst recently predicted that 2020, the telemedicine market would be worth $36B dollars.

Although technology improvements have enable a new generation of telemedicine services, policy makers have been slower to adopt telemedicine.  Recently, however, a number of telemedicine related bills have been introduced that could fuel escalated telemedicine adoption by patients, payers and providers.

Bill and Mason discussed such topics as parity law, telemedicine informed consent, provider licensure requirements, telepresenter regulations, provider-patient encounter requirements, security and telemedicine clinical standards of care.

Special Guests:

Bill Boling, Founder, Boling and Company

 

Mason Reid, Associate, Boling and Company

 

Azalea Health

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Azalea Health

Baha Zeidan

Azalea Health

This week we started our twice-monthly series with Tanya Mack, CEO of Women’s Telehealth.  Her first guest was CEO and Co-founder of Azalea Health, Baha Zeidan.  Azalea Health is an EMR company that launched in 2008 in Valdosta, GA.  Since then the company has enjoyed steady growth and has been recognized as one of Inc. 500 Nation’s fastest growing private companies, Georgia Top 40 Innovator, and 2014 Emerging Company of the Year Phoenix Award Winner.

Healthcare IT is at the forefront of revolutionizing trends that will change the way healthcare is delivered and patients’ health and wellness outcomes. Healthcare providers and patients who are resistant to technology may be left behind. Today- EMR’s, patient portals, mobile health apps and wearables, cloud computing, and interoperability are not fringe applications but active advances that allow the patients to become more a part of the healthcare team.

Technology makes that possible. Currently, the global EMR market is $11 Billion and the US remains dominant in EMR adoption. As we move to electronic medical records, EMR’s hold a lifetime of health data and can be used to predict our individual health future through modeling.

Today’s guest, Baha Zeidan, CEO of Azalea Health will be discussing his company’s
EMR and Practice management platform and how it is evolving to incorporate these new technology advances.

Special Guests:

Baha Zeidan, CEO of Azalea Health  linkedin_small1  twitter_logo_small  feed logo  facebook_logo_small3  youtube logo  

Azalea Health

Tanya Mack, President, Women’s Telehealth  youtube logo  linkedin_small1  twitter_logo_small-e1403698475314  facebook_logo_small3

telemedicine

 

Telemedicine

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Telemedicine

Today’s technology, particularly internet, communications, and mobile platforms, is empowering disruption in the traditional healthcare delivery model. Telemedicine is an emerging trend that shows no sign of slowing and my guests on this episode focus on this platform for delivering high quality care.

In some ways, mobile technology is bringing us full circle.  The “House Call” is back and being seen by a physician and/or other health professional in our home or other location outside of a doctor’s office, urgent care, or ER will likely be as common as it was decades ago, if not even more so.

Telemedicine is taking advantage of these technology capabilities to put patients together with healthcare professionals virtually and in some cases, through a combination of someone sitting with the patient facilitating an exam while another provider is connected to the interaction via video/telephony.

TeleHealth Solutions is a consultancy that works with healthcare organizations and practices seeking to add telemedicine to their delivery model.  The company is able to evaluate the client’s goals and determine (hopefully prior to any expenditures on equipment/platforms) the best platform for achieving those objectives.

In some cases they may even advise the client to hold off on adding such a platform, depending on what they were expecting it to do, avoiding large costs for something that will ultimately not be used.  Turner Smith explained how there are often unseen pitfalls around launching such a delivery model, so working with experts such as himself and his team can insure desired patient outcomes are achieved while making financial investments in the right technology/service.

Glenn Pearson spent nearly 20 years leading the Georgia Hospital Association.  As such, he’s well-versed in the in’s and out’s of how hospitals do business, make decisions regarding technologies they will deploy (or NOT deploy), and factors that can make what seems to be a great idea for a solution that will ultimately fail to be adopted.

He’s leveraging that experience at Pearson Health Tech Insights, providing consulting services for  tech companies who are developing (or plan to develop) technology solutions that will serve the hospital/health system space.  He and his team can help the tech developer potentially pivot their solution if needed, or in some cases do some redesign before going to market.  In this way, just as Turner’s firm helps tech buyers purchase wisely, Glenn’s company helps the developer have greater probability of success in getting their technology adopted.

I met Tanya Mack a couple of years ago on her show Doctors Roundtable here on Business Radio X.  She is now leading a company called, Women’s Telehealth, a virtual physician practice comprised of maternal-fetal specialists and high-risk pregnancy OB’s.

These healthcare experts are able to link up with a hospital or group’s existing telehealth technology to provide the medical expertise needed by moms in high-risk pregnancies.  With value to both urban and rural areas, Women’s Telehealth is allowing organizations that do not have high-risk OB specialists on staff, to be able to handle many of these patient needs, allowing the organization to simultaneously meet a patient need, while keeping them in their delivery system rather than losing them to a competing hospital.

Special Guests:

Tanya Mack, President, Women’s Telehealth  youtube logo  linkedin_small1  twitter_logo_small-e1403698475314  facebook_logo_small3

telemedicine

Turner Smith, VP of Business Development, TeleHealth Solutions  linkedin_small1

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Glenn Pearson, Principal, Pearson Health Tech Insights  linkedin_small1

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Telemedicine

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Sidney Welch

Healthcare attorney, Sidney Welch

Telemedicine

We sat down with legal expert on healthcare matters, attorney, Sidney Welch, of the Polsinelli law firm on our monthly episode with Medical Association of Georgia.  What is it?  How is it utilized?  And, what are the licensing, regulatory, and legal concerns around it?

Georgia Composite Medical Board (GCMB) has stressed that it is essential for telemedicine patients in the state to receive the same high standard of care they would in a traditional office setting.  GCMB adopted a number of telemedicine rules in 2014 that “allow the Composite Board to take disciplinary action against licensed physicians and allied health professionals who practice telemedicine if they do not provide the minimum standard of care.”

Georgia’s rules require physicians and other allied health care professionals who deliver care by way of telemedicine to…

  • Be the ones who provide all of the treatment and/or consultations via telehealth.
  • Have access to the patient’s medical history if they are providing the services.
  • Have personally seen and examined the patient if they are referring the patient to a telehealth provider.
  • Maintain records on the patient’s evaluation and treatment if they are providing a service via telehealth and to provide a copy of those records to the referring physician.
  • Provide telehealth services only within their specialty.
  • Give their name, credentials and emergency contact information to the patient when they provide a telehealth treatment or consultation.
  • Provide the patient with “clear, appropriate, accurate instructions” on follow-up care.

Controlled substances for pain or chronic pain treatment cannot be prescribed through telehealth – but a physician or a nurse practitioner or a physician assistant can order appropriate labs or other diagnostic tests.

The physician who provides the care via telemedicine must make a “diligent” effort to ensure that the patient is seen and examined in person at least once a year by a Georgia-licensed physician or other appropriate health care professional.

Special Guest:

Sidney Welch, JD, of Polsinelli  linkedin_small1  twitter_logo_small-e1403698475314  facebook_logo_small3  

Sidney Welch