Telehealth Academy 2022 – Diving Deeper Into Telehealth with a Session 2 Overview

September 26, 2022 / Share:

Diving Deeper In Telehealth

Nashville Entrepreneur Center’s Jeremy Raley kicked off the second virtual session of Telehealth Academy II with Lisa Esch, SVP of Provider Industry Solutions at NTT DATA.

Esch first distinguished the difference between the narrow definition of telemedicine and the broader complexities of telehealth, which are now fully in play in our post-covid landscape. She shared that telehealth encompasses many caregivers, education, follow-up, and more to complete a patient’s health continuum.

“And so, as you hear the speakers today, you’re going to learn a lot about these things, and really think about how we tackle some of the new challenges that we’re even seeing because of some of the challenges that we saw in the last couple of years where all the new technology that was dropped into this telehealth space,” said Esch.

New technology, she said, was solving specific issues but now needs to connect and become seamlessly integrated with every aspect of a patient’s care. NTT DATA’s customers are seeing this play out in delivering acute care at home and hospital-at-home services.

Esch shared, “Now I think it’s really really exciting. I know we’re seeing with our customers this advanced conversation about acute hospital at home. You know more than just post-acute care and minor types of things, real, acute hospital health.”

Before handing the digital floor over to the speakers, Jeremy gave a big thank you to the sponsors, organizations, and individuals that have made TA II possible.

Future-Facing Panel

We then switched to a panel discussion mediated by Dr. Lisa Piercy, founder and CEO of Tristela. She started the chat by asking Ann Somers Hogg, senior research fellow/Health Care at the Christensen Institute, about where the business models around telehealth have been and where she sees them headed in the future.

Hogg explained that the long-entrenched fee-for-service business model of healthcare revealed its shortcomings as the pandemic progressed. The businesses that she saw emerge as leaders after the dust settled were the companies that had a resilient business model in place that sustained them throughout the pandemic. This big difference seemed to be a shift toward value-based care.

Daniel Graver, Healthcare & Data Privacy Attorney at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, followed Hogg’s comments with a reflection on the regulations at play in the telehealth world. He mentioned the temporary reprieve from regulatory roadblocks due to emergency regulations are coming to an end and that means that, in order to have a nationwide telehealth model, congress has a significant role to play. This means that professionals in the healthcare space are now responsible to prove the value of telehealth.

“Historically, Medicare has been relatively slow to adopt telehealth and has been partly limited by its current authority and partially limited by its legislative legislation,” said Graver. “Covid changed that abruptly and rapidly, with many of those limitations being waived. And this has provided an opening for innovative and expanded telehealth models, but that many of those telehealth flexibilities tied to the public health emergency are likely to end early next year.”

Circling back to resilient business models, Dr. Piercy asked Hogg to share an example of a program that showed positive results.

Hogg brought up UT Austin Medical School’s program and Factor Health, which partnered with the local social and community programs to address the loneliness epidemic in seniors. They trained students in empathetic interview techniques and had them call the seniors struggling with loneliness. The results showed that this cost-effective program reduced loneliness and the number of reporting indicators for anxiety and depression.

The panel wrapped up with their short and long-term predictions on the future state of telemedicine.

“In the long run, we need organizations to build net new business models that are designed to deliver on the promise of value-based care, and deliver on a value proposition that matters both to those consuming the care and those paying for the care,” said Hogg.

“So in the short term, I think that we’re seeing the pendulum start to swing back a little bit on the regulatory flexibilities, and I think that it will probably overcorrect a little bit,” said Graver. “I spent not an insignificant amount of my time helping innovative companies try to figure out how to squeeze their new business model into the existing regulations. That’s the kind of thing that moves the regulations over time because they will adopt. They will advance over time and change to take into consideration what’s really going on on the market. The government’s always going to be behind business because it moves more slowly, but you will just continue to see more and more regulatory flexibility.”

Keynote Speakers

Next up were our three keynote speakers to discuss everything from telehealth polling results to AI-powered smart care facilities. The first to speak was Krista Drobac of Alliance for Connected Care & Moving Health Home.

Krista Drobac

Executive Director at Alliance for Connected Care & Moving Health Home

Navigating The Policy Barriers To Health Care Transformation

Krista Drobac gave the audience a deep dive into the behind-the-scenes actions that drive new regulations and laws around telehealth and home healthcare. As Executive Director at Alliance for Connected Care, a 501(c)(6) organization dedicated to ensuring that all patients are able to realize the benefits of telehealth and remote monitoring and founder of Moving Health Home, where she leads a team of regulatory and legislative professionals in implementing the vision of the coalition members around making the home a clinical site of care, she is able to see the larger picture of the state of telehealth.

She started out by sharing what everyone in the audience can probably agree upon – accessing healthcare outside of institutional walls and on the go is the future. However, she said that members of Congress are still skeptical of these new models of care even when their constituents and other advocates are showing massive support. This is why the capturing and sharing of data around telehealth is so critical. Because to push through the red tape, everyone will have to work together.

“Transformation requires government action because we’re in such a heavily regulated environment, so helping us convey the urgency of patient and provider preferences and the evidence around the new models,” said Drobac.

Drobac emphasized the massive impact the pandemic had on gathering research, saying that patients finally got the full experience of utilizing telehealth which meant we could see how the patients, care providers, and institutions reacted to such a shift. What research showed is an overwhelmingly positive response. “People got to try it, and so now we get to ask them what they thought of it and expand,” said Drobac. “Among providers, ninety percent said that they thought that expanding telehealth increased access to care. They wanted, believe it or not, actually, providers have said that they are more likely to stay in the profession if they can continue to practice telehealth.” In addition to attitudes surrounding this new care model, research also debunked some negative perceptions around telehealth.

She wrapped up with a call to action for the audience, sharing that pushing crucial legislation in favor of telehealth requires all those in healthcare to work together and share information.

For updates on legislation and votes, follow Alliance for Connected Care on Twitter: https://twitter.com/connectwcare

Telehealth Academy 2022 – Diving Deeper Into Telehealth with a Session 2 Overview

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