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TELEHEALTH BEAT
HTRC's monthly telehealth bulletin
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Heartland Telehealth Resource Center is here to meet your telehealth needs. We are a federally funded organization serving Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma, with a wide range of services, and many of them are free. Email us at [email protected] or call us at 877-643-HTRC.
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Opioid epidemic gets a helping hand from telehealth
All too often we hear the grim account on the evening news - another life lost in the opioid use crisis. Over
33,000
people died in the United States in 2015 alone, of opioid overdose and the impact is devastating on families and communities. But it is not all bad news - increasingly, states and organizations are mobilizing to help improve treatment options for people suffering from substance use disorder and telehealth is playing an important role.
Project ECHO (Extending Healthcare Community Outcomes) is among the technology assisted-tools being used to increase treatment options for opioid use disorder. The ECHO model uses telehealth technology as a vehicle to teach primary care providers specialty skills so they can treat patients themselves, rather than having to refer patients out to services that may not even be available in their community.
HTRC partners, University of Kansas Center for Telemedicine & Telehealth and Missouri Telehealth Network have on-going ECHOs for chronic pain management. Chronic pain is the number one reason opioids are prescribed, but the pain management ECHO teams have focused on providing other tools for pain management to try to limit over-prescribing of opioids.
In addition to Chronic Pain Management ECHO, Missouri's ECHO project, dubbed Show-Me ECHO, will debut a new ECHO in September called Opioid Use Disorder ECHO.
Dr. Doug Burgess, an addiction psychiatrist at Truman Medical Center, will lead the Opioid Use Disorder ECHO. According to Burgess, treating opioid addiction can be a daunting prospect for busy providers, but in many ways, they are already treating the effects of opioid use.
"It is easy to get into the mindset of saying 'I'm busy. I don't want to take on one more thing,' but every provider is already treating this in some way, whether he or she knows it or not," said Burgess. "
The difference is do you want to have the tools to be able to treat opioid use disorder effectively? That is what this ECHO group hopes to provide. We want to decrease the morbidity and mortality associated with opioid use disorder by giving providers the tools to treat something they are already seeing in their everyday practice."
Burgess said patient opioid use disorder can manifest in different
ways, including personal injuries, ineffective pain management, patients going from doctor to doctor, and even spread of infectious diseases like hepatitis
C.
In addition to the physical manifestations, opioid addiction has a lasting impact on society as a whole. Children in families with addiction may continue to suffer throughout their lifespan. This generational effect is illustrated in a June Kansas City Star article that describes the harrowing story of two of Burgess's patients, a mother and a daughter, who are now recovering from their addictions.
The mother and daughter described in the article are benefiting from Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT), which combines behavioral therapy and medication to treat addiction. Opioid Use Disorder ECHO will support participants who have been MAT trained.
Burgess said this treatment can be very effective and it is a misconception that Suboxone, one of the most common medications used to treat opioid addiction, is somehow more difficult to prescribe than other medications.
"The
training for administering [Suboxone] is thorough and makes it less daunting to prescribe. Once you use it, within a short period of time you realize that it is not difficult to prescribe," explained Burgess.
HTRC will continue to provide updates on these ECHO projects. For more information about joining a chronic pain ECHO or Opioid Use Disorder ECHO, please call 573-884-3753 in Missouri or 913-588-2081 in Kansas.
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Columbia, Mo.
September 26 & 27, 2017
Missouri Telehealth Network provides formal and informal training to new and existing members of the network. This training offers a thorough overview of telehealth including:
- How to use telehealth devices and trouble-shoot equipment problems
- Public and private policies impacting telehealth, billing requirements, JCAHO standards and HIPAA regulations
- Clinical, administrative and educational applications of telehealth
- Telehealth use in specialties and other programs such as Show-Me ECHO.
National Rural Health Day
November 16, 2017
It's never too early to save the date for National Rural Health Day!
Upcoming and ongoing ECHO schedule
For more information about participating in an ECHO program, go to one of these websites:
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ECHO
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WHEN
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STATE
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| Pain Management |
Ongoing |
Kansas |
| Asthma |
Starts fall 2017 |
Kansas |
| Child Behavioral Health |
Starts fall 2017 |
Kansas |
| Opioid Use Disorder |
Starts in September |
Missouri |
| Impact Asthma |
New round starts in September |
Missouri |
Autism
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Ongoing |
Missouri
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| Healthcare Ethics |
Ongoing |
Missouri
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| Chronic Pain Management |
New round starts in September |
Missouri
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| Dermatology |
Ongoing |
Missouri
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| Hep C |
New round starts in August |
Missouri
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| Child Psychology |
Ongoing |
Missouri
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2017 "Most Wired" Hospitals
The
2017 Most Wired list is out and 23 hospitals in the HTRC region made the list! University of Missouri Health Care was one of the three award winners in the Innovator category. The award was based on the MoodTrek smartphone app, an innovation in the field of mental health that allows patients to securely track their mood, activity and sleep so patient and provider can better understand how to improve function and prevent future challenges.
Also notable, two Oklahoma City hospitals, Oklahoma Heart Hospital and Oklahoma Heart Hospital South were awarded "most improved." Recognized in the "Most Wired Small & Rural" category was one Oklahoma hospital, Stillwater Medical Center and two Missouri hospitals, Carroll County Memorial Hospital and Capital Region Medical Center in Jefferson City. Finally, Mercy in Chesterfield, Mo. qualified for the "Most Wired Advanced" category for meeting the advanced criteria in every category, including, infrastructure, business intelligence, connections with patients, and analytics. Congratulations to all the recognized hospitals and health systems!
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Project ECHO
Project ECHO is a program using telemedicine to revolutionize medical
 education
and improve access to specialty care. Project ECHO, which was developed by the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, works by connecting primary care clinicians with specialist teams via videoconference.
Each specialty area has its own ECHO, such as autism or chronic pain. ECHO teams meet regularly to hear cases from providers and make recommendations.
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4330 Shawnee Mission Parkway Fairway, KS 66205
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