The Intel-GE Healthcare joint venture, Care Innovations, last week inked a full five-year deal with the University of Mississippi Medical Center to use remote care management tools, such as their Health Harmony telehealth platform, in the home setting to reduce readmissions and ER/ED use. The chronic medical conditions they will be tracking are congestive heart failure, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, and hypertension. According to Healthcare Finance, the RPM, data analytics and application integration services they are developing may be offered outside the state. This follows on reported positive results produced by a statewide population health program, the Diabetes Telehealth Network, involving both CI and UMMC’s Center for Telehealth. The results for the six-month first phase of the remote care management program, which included 100 Mississippians with diabetes: a 1.7% average A1C reduction, zero hospitalizations and ER visits, and a savings of $339,184 over six months. The CI and UMMC goal is to enroll 1,000 patients per month through 2016, and to save $189 million in Medicaid cost among diabetics alone. Care Innovations release. Health Data Management. This follows on GE Healthcare’s acquisition of healthcare consultancy Camden Group [TTA Nov 12]
University of Mississippi telehealth center to expand (US)
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/ummc_aerial.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]A Baton Rouge, La.-based data company set its sights on Jackson, Mississippi, and announced on Tuesday (10 March 2015) it will build a technology center that, in part, will house one of the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s fastest growing services – telehealth, according to a news release from UMMC. UMMC entered into a lease agreement with Venyu Solutions, LLC, which will construct a stand-alone, 16,000-square-foot facility to accommodate the increase in the services UMMC’s Center for Telehealth provides to hospitals, clinics, corporations and patients across the state.
Venyu CEO Scott Thompson is quoted to have said construction would start in April or May and take a little less than a year. The hospital’s lease will begin on or around July 1, 2016. (more…)
State telemedicine legislation update (US)
Here’s some brief updates on US telemedicine legislation scene to hit the news recently.
Florida
Florida is progressing the telehealth bill we reported on 12 Feb 2015. The Florida Senate [grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Florida-House-of-Representattives.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Telehealth Policy Committee revised the draft bill on 18 Feb 2015 so the need for Medicaid reimbursements to be the same for telemedicine and face-to-face consultations is removed.
Mississippi
We have reported many telehealth initiatives from Mississippi and the state is now considered to be “a leader in telemedicine” according to a recent report in Politico. “Mississippi’s telemedicine program, ranked among the seven best in the country, has inspired neighboring Arkansas to take bigger steps in some areas of the field, and the impact of its success is making waves in Washington as well” continues Politico.
Mississippi is also helping to move telehealth at a federal level. Rep. Gregg Harper (R-Miss.) and Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA) introduced a bipartisan bill in July last year to expand telehealth services under Medicare. The bill called Medicare [grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/mississippi-logo1.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Telehealth Parity Act 2014 starts to move face to face and telehealth consultations to be on an equal footing.
University of Mississippi awarded telemedicine Emergency and Specialty Care grant
More details have emerged of one of the projects funded by the $16 million USDA investment announced in February (see TTA 7 February 2014).
The United States Department of Agriculture grant of $378,360 to the University of Mississippi Medical Center will be enhanced by $200,000 from Appalachian Regional Commission [grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/TESCAN_map.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /] providing $578,360 for a three-year distance-learning and telemedicine service project “Telemedicine Emergency and Specialty Care for Appalachia in North Mississippi (TESCAN)”, according to UMMC. UMMC is also the primary site for the Diabetes Telehealth Network we reported in January.
The sites, considered “medically underserved areas” and “health-professional-shortage areas” by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, include:
• Calhoun County Medical Clinic, Calhoun City;
• Trace Regional Hospital, Houston;
• Kemper County Medical Center, De Kalb;
• Tishomingo Health Services, Inc., Iuka;
• Webster General Hospital, Eupora;
• Yalobusha General Hospital, Water Valley;
• North Mississippi Medical Center-Pontotoc, Pontotoc;
• Kilmichael Hospital, Kilmichael; and
• Holmes County Hospital, Lexington.
Representatives from the USDA and UMMC announced the grant agreement at a joint press conference at the UBS Building in Jackson.
The grant will expand the number of (more…)
New diabetes telehealth trial in Mississippi (US)
A new telehealth trial for diabetes patients will be recruiting patients in Mississippi this spring. Known [grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/ummc_aerial.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]as the Diabetes Telehealth Network, the trial is planned to provide a classic telehealth service for up to 200 patients for a period of 18 months.
This trial is a result of a collaboration between several public and private organizations: the Mississippi Governor’s office, University of Mississippi, North Sunflower Medical Center, GE Healthcare, Intel-GE Care Innovations and C Spire.
The recruited trialists will be provided with a broadband connected tablet PC which will have software to enable daily medical measurements to be transmitted to a specialist team at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. A press release states that the measurements will include weight, blood pressure, and glucose level and these will be monitored by the clinical staff at (more…)
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