Telehealth News

Montana Will Use Telehealth to Improve Maternal Care Management

The state is getting a five-year, $10 million grant to create a Project ECHO telemedicine network aimed at improving obstetric and maternal care management in rural areas.

Source: ThinkStock

By Eric Wicklund

- Montana state officials will be using $10 million in federal funding to launch a telemedicine program designed to improve obstetric and maternal care management.

The state’s Department of Public Health and Human Services is using the five-year grant to establish the Montana Obstetric and Maternal Support (MOMS) program, a telehealth service built on the Project ECHO telemedicine framework that will link OB/GYN experts with rural care providers to share expertise on a variety of issues, including substance abuse counseling and medication-assisted treatment (MAT) therapy for pregnant and parenting women.

“By bringing more resources to rural Montana, we hope to improve maternal health outcomes by collaborating on high-risk pregnancies, promoting the importance of prenatal care in the first trimester and identifying and consulting on these cases early in the process,” C.H. “Tersh” McCracken III, MD, FACOG, an OBGYN at the Billings Clinic and the new program’s medical director, said in a press release issued by the state.

The program, to be launched in 2020, will be coordinated by the Billings Clinic through its existing Eastern Montana Telemedicine Network, which connects some 30 hospitals and health systems in the state.

MOMS aims to tackle a growing problem in Montana, one of the nation’s largest, least populated and most rural states. The state ranks sixth in the nation in maternal mortality, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, primarily due to a lack of access to care for rural and Native American women.

“Big Horn County is over 5,000 square miles and we don’t have a single hospital with a delivery program,” Kristi Gatrell, CEO of Big Horn Hospital, said in the press release. “The nearest birthing hospitals are more than 50 miles away from Hardin in Billings, and many more miles away for women in more remote areas of the county. Access to this type of expertise on a regular basis will be a tremendous benefit to our patients.”

Project ECHO – Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes – programs are growing popular across the country as a means of pushing clinical support and educational resources from large hospitals and health systems out to small hospitals, clinics, health centers and even independent practices.

The telemedicine model places the large hospital or academic medical center with specialists at the hub of a hub-and-spoke network, and creates an online connected health platform through which those specialists can hold weekly, biweekly or monthly sessions with care providers.

The MOMS program will also use the telemedicine network to offer remote specialist consults for rural providers treating high-risk pregnant and post-partum patients, either on-demand during emergencies or in regularly scheduled appointments.

Some of the grant money will be used to establish a Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Task Force, and to fund data collection efforts through the MOMS program and the University of Montana. In addition, the program will be sending out Simulation in Motion-Montana trucks to offer mHealth training at clinics and hospitals.

“This is an excellent opportunity to elevate healthcare services for pregnant and postpartum women who have little or no access to high levels of obstetrics care,” Montana Governor Steve Bullock said in the press release. “The launch of this program gets us one step closer to ensuring that every woman in Montana has equal opportunity to access affordable and quality care.”

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