Riding the Wave: Genesee County Mental Health Department Embraces Telehealth Services 

Moved to the forefront by COVID-19, telehealth is the wave of the future for Genesee County Mental Health & Community Services, the agency's director said on Monday.

Additional article of interest:  Telehealth Could Grow to a $250B Revenue Opportunity Post-COVID-19: Analysis

Removing Regulatory Barriers to Telehealth Before and After COVID-19

This paper attempts to explore and extrapolate what state and federal policies will need to be adopted to potentially prepare for more ubiquitous adoption and use of telehealth services in an expanded set of use cases than those recorded by law. The authors also explore the application of existing and emerging state parity laws, which could serve as an obstacle to telehealth delivery in the future. Despite their application as a framework for reimbursement of COVID-19 expenses during the current application, the paper will provide guidance on these and other state and federal laws that will run counter to the long-term promotion and patient access of digital technologies, particularly those that aid in the management of primary care, chronic health conditions, and prevention. The paper concludes with a set of policy and pragmatic proposals that combine the recent lessons learned by the health-care community and patients, along with larger issues, including broadband access, that set the stage for future use. These recommendations were compiled after a structured focus group with medical practitioners, associations, and health policymakers working on the matters described in this paper.

HMA Framework Examines Behavioral Health Crisis Diversion Facilities

HMA has provided a model framework examining an option for care for individuals with behavioral health needs who often find themselves involved with law enforcement or in hospital emergency rooms during times of crisis. 

Mental illness and substance use disorders affect a large number of Americans, with emergency departments and law enforcement often serving as the most frequent respondents to individuals in crisis. Crisis Diversion Facilities can provide targeted, specialized mental health and substance use treatment that can stabilize people in crisis, reduce unnecessary and costly emergency room use and jail stays, and increase access to critical health and support services for vulnerable members of communities.

The model crisis diversion facility:

The framework includes the following:

• Report: Behavioral Health Crisis and Diversion from the Criminal Justice System: A Model for Effective Community Response
• Guidebook: A Community Guide for Development of a Crisis Diversion Facility: A Model for Effective Community Response to Behavioral Health Crisis
• Policy brief

For any questions, please contact Bren Manaugh at 

[email protected]. 

Adapting Social Determinants of Health Screening for Remote Care

If you asked her in January, Ellie Zuehlke, director of Community Benefit and Engagement at Allina Health, would have said the health system would fully digitize its social determinants of health screening and referral in about five years. She couldn't have imagined that just a few months later the health system would have pivoted to digital in less than a week.

"In March, our world flipped upside down and we in Minnesota basically shut our clinic," Zuehlke said to PatientEngagementHIT. "People joke about it but it's really true. We implemented our five-year virtual strategy in five days."

At break-neck speed, Zuehlke and partners in the health technology and accountable communities departments revamped technology from NowPow. This tool allows providers to assess a digital  social determinants of health screener and provide virtual links to community-based services that can meet the needs detected in the screener. The technology also enables virtual connections between the highest-risk patients and healthcare navigators.

But before that, this was largely a paper-based system, Zuehlke described. Read more here.

For Opioid Users, Pandemic Means New Dangers, But Also New Treatment Options

Before Philadelphia shut down to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Ed had a routine: most mornings he would head to a nearby McDonald's to brush his teeth, wash his face and - when he had the money - buy a cup of coffee. He would bounce between homeless shelters and try to get a shower. But since businesses closed and many shelters stopped taking new admissions, Ed has been mostly shut off from that routine.

He's still living on the streets.

"I'll be honest, I don't really sleep too much," says Ed, who's 51 and struggling with addiction. "Every four or five days I get a couple hours." NPR agreed not to use his last name because he uses illegal drugs.

Philadelphia has the highest overdose rate of any big city in America -  in 2019, more than three people a day died of drug overdoses there, on average. Before the coronavirus began spreading across the United States, the opioid overdose epidemic was the biggest health crisis on the minds of many city officials and public health experts. But the coronavirus pandemic has largely eclipsed the conversation around the opioid crisis. It still rages on despite business closures, the cancellation of in-person treatment appointments and the strain on many addiction resources in the city. Read more here.