Please help us understand the telehealth you’ve implemented to address your community’s health needs, so we can support these efforts. If you have not yet implemented telehealth at your clinic, we would like to hear about the challenges you face so we can develop training and resources to assist you. Contact Rose Locklear, locklear@ohus.edu to participate in this project.
The Oregon Office of Rural Health (ORH) is managing a new project in partnership with the Telehealth Alliance of Oregon (TAO) and the Northwest Regional Telehealth Resource Center (NRTRC). This work will contextualize and catalog the telehealth services provided at Oregon’s Rural Health Clinics (RHCs). The project is funded by Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP) through the 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act to carry out telehealth and rural health activities. HRSA is using CARES funding to support the Telehealth Resource Center Program in preventing, preparing for, and responding to COVID-19 via the following strategies:
- Prevent – Promote the use of telehealth technologies to reduce the risk of COVID-19;
- Prepare – Enhance readiness and training to respond to COVID-19 through telehealth technologies; and
- Respond – Provide access to telehealth technologies to limit the spread of COVID-19.
States across the country are implementing projects to increase the ability of the Telehealth Resource Centers to provide technical assistance to health care providers or organizations as they rapidly increase their use of telehealth services or deploy new telehealth services to address the increased demands in response to the COVID-19 public health emergency.
We recognize the numerous challenges associated with offering telehealth in rural and frontier communities, with broadband connectivity and reimbursement being the most commonly cited challenges. This project will catalog and map the telehealth services that Oregon’s 102 RHCs offer. This data currently does not exist in one location and is greatly needed to support larger conversations about the challenges of connectivity, reimbursement, and behavioral health access, to name a few. Ultimately, the information collected will be readily available online.