Telehealth News

MaineHealth Looks to Create a Blueprint for Telehealth Success

The Maine-based network's telehealth program manager laid out a framework for success that relies heavily on planning, practice, and data.

Source: ThinkStock

By Eric Wicklund

- After brewing up a batch of “home-grown pilots” and watching them either mature or melt away, MaineHealth is ready to standardize its telehealth platform.

And that means developing a framework that promotes sustainability, says Jasmine Bishop, Telehealth Program Manager for the eight-hospital network. Such a routine will not only enable their 20 current connected health programs to flourish, but give new ideas and programs a better chance of taking root and growing.

Bishop, speaking at this week’s Northeast Regional Telehealth Conference in Portland, ME, offered an action plan that might fit neatly into the playbook of any small- to mid-sized health system. It’s heavy on planning, practicing and data collection, she pointed out, and steers clear of the “Just Do It” mantra.

“For telehealth, this tagline just does not work,” she said.

For starters, Bishop recommends looking beyond the great idea or can’t-miss proposition and focusing on data collection. – what she calls the “data deep dive.”

“You need to prove that the actual need exists, and that has to come through the data,” she said. That means doing research, defining a population that would benefit from this particular telehealth service and which would actually use it.

This also carries through to the back end. A telehealth program will only succeed if it has the quality metrics and reporting to back it up – and that means knowing what to measure and how to measure it even before the program is launched. To that end, Bishop said, MaineHealth has brought on an intern this summer to study how other health systems gather quality metrics for their programs.

Once that idea has been fleshed out into a solid concept, Bishop recommends addressing four key elements:

  1. Leadership – make sure the new program has a champion leading the way and the backing of all stakeholders.
  2. Credentialing – anyone involved in the program has to have the credentials to deliver care online, especially if the program crosses state lines.
  3. Physician resources – make sure there’s an adequate pool of providers to cover the program at all times, from peak traffic times to the dogs days of summer when it seems everyone is on vacation.
  4. Contracting – if there are unions involved, make sure they’re on board.

Stakeholder buy-in is a key element that’s often overlooked, Bishop said. Many a project can be shepherded all the way through to a go-live date, only to have one particular executive or group step in at the last moment and complain that they hadn’t been consulted. She suggests drawing up a list of all stakeholders and creating a communication plan to ensure that everyone is in the loop.

Bishop also recommends getting written confirmation of support for the program.

“It’s not just getting the buy-in – it’s proving that you got it at some point,” she said.

These four elements are addressed first, Bishop said, because they’re the ones most likely to take a lot of time. Once they’re hashed out, a second checklist comes into play, one designed to hash out the specifics for a new program.

This list, in no particular order, consists of:

  • Billing
  • EHR integration
  • Clinical workflows
  • Technology
  • Payer enrollment
  • Training
  • Evaluation
  • Quality assurance
  • Data reporting.

Once again, Bishop recommends paying attention to the details. Plan carefully for EHR integration, particularly if more than one EHR is involved. Don’t just assume that data coming in from a provider outside the network will automatically fit into the medical record.

Finally, Bishop recommends a dry run of the new program.

“To walk through this, I strongly recommend physically walking through this,” she added. Make sure all the stakeholders are in place to run through the program before it goes live. Everyone has to know how the program works before ny patient is invited to try it out.

In closing, Bishop offered three pieces of advice: Confirm all buy-in, make sure there’s an ample supply of providers to run the program, and document everything.

She said the MaineHealth is still testing the recipe, but the health system has high hopes.

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