Telehealth News

Minnesota Looks to Expand Telehealth Network for Opioid Abuse Treatment

State officials say an eight-community telemedicine network using the Project ECHO model is improving access to treatment and supporting rural providers, and should be expanded to some 20 new communities.

Source: ThinkStock

By Eric Wicklund

- Critics may be bemoaning the slow adoption rate of telehealth services for substance abuse treatment, but one network of healthcare providers in Minnesota is making strides with a connected care platform – and planning an expansion.

The Minnesota Department of Health’s (MDH) Opioid Prevention Pilot Project, launched in 2017 with $1 million in state funding, has seen success in reducing patient pill use while increasing both the numbers of Minnesotans getting treatment and the rural providers able to provide that care. Now Gov. Tim Walz wants to add 20 communities to the eight-community program and expand the telemedicine service to allow more participation.

“The early success and proven track record of these pilot projects is encouraging,” Minnesota Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm said in a recent news release. “By scaling up the effort, we hope to bring the positive impact to many more communities across the state.”

The program is based on the Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) telemedicine model, developed in 2003 at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and now being used across the country. It enables a health system to create a virtual care network, through which experts pass along best practices and collaborate with remote and rural providers to bring them up to speed.

“It’s a fantastic way of delivering healthcare in a learning environment,” says Dr. Vimal Mishra, Medical Director of the Office of Telemedicine/Telehealth at Virginia Commonwealth University’s VCU Health system, which launched its own Project ECHO program in 2018 to help rural Virginia providers take on the growing opioid abuse epidemic. “This is where the future of public health begins.”

In Minnesota, the hub of this hub-and-spoke telemedicine network is CHI St. Gabriel’s Family Medical Center in Little Falls. Officials there say the program has helped the clinic reduce patient pill use by 724,000 pills per year, tapered about 670 patients off of controlled substance prescriptions and now provides about 90 patients medication-assisted treatment.

Based on the success of the clinic’s three-year program, state officials created the eight-member Project ECHO pilot in 2017. It consists of the Alexandria Clinic at Douglas County Hospital, Carris Health Redwood Falls Clinic, Chippewa County Montevideo Hospital, Fairview Mesaba Clinics in Hibbing, FirstLight Health System in Mora, Lake Region Healthcare in Fergus Falls, the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe and Riverwood Healthcare Center of Aitkin/McGregor.

Through the online platform, each participating community convenes teams of pharmacists, physicians, social workers, nurse care coordinators, mental health professionals and others. They review strategies used by CHI St. Gabriel’s, including reducing the inappropriate use of opioids through care coordination, addressing unmet social service needs, education and assistance for providers, proper opioid disposal and engaging resources outside the health system.

Based on six months of data, the program has helped those communities cut patient pill use by nearly 765,000 pills per year, while getting 147 patients needed care and adding 21 care providers to the ranks of those qualified to give MAT (medication-assisted treatment) therapy.

“The impact our legislative pilot program has had on these eight communities is substantial,” Kurt DeVine, MD, a family medicine physician certified in MAT therapy at the clinic, said in the press release. “Prescription opioids dispensed have markedly decreased. This will impact and lessen the number of patients exposed to opioids and hopefully reduce the chronic dependence and subsequent opioid use disorder. Additionally, these communities have significantly increased access to medication-assisted treatment.”

 “The collaboration of these pilot sites with their communities has helped facilitate a comprehensive network of stigma-free patient care,” added Heather Bell, MD, of CHI St. Gabriel’s. “Combining this legislative pilot program with our weekly Project ECHO telehealth program would enable us to affect dozens more communities if funding is available.”

Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
©2012-2024 TechTarget, Inc. Xtelligent Healthcare Media is a division of TechTarget. All rights reserved. HealthITAnalytics.com is published by Xtelligent Healthcare Media a division of TechTarget.