Support to Rural Hospitals and Community Providers

Project Overview

Rural Hospitals are facing increasing difficulties in recruiting specialists to provide care to the patients. As a result many patients are either transferred out to other hospitals or end up not receiving access to quality care leading to poor outcomes. We will provide technical assistance and assistance in supporting remote consultations from specialty offices to various smaller rural hospitals, mobile clinics, and brick and mortar clinics in the state. Access to specialist health services is an important determinant of health care outcomes. Patients in remote areas must wait several months for specialists’ appointments and travel several hours to see the specialists, these are the two crucial factors that limit access to specialist care in rural America. E-Consults is the Telehealth modality that can assist in delivering specialty care and add value to the rural setting. These are asynchronous electronic consults where a provider can share patient information with a specialist and ask specialist for their advice on how to evaluate or treat a patient. This includes a review of the patients' chart, imaging, and diagnostics. E-Consults are unique in that they provide flexibility to the specialist regarding the timing of performing them. However the current reimbursement model for E-Consults do not adequately cover the cost of setting up the program specially for out of state specialists providing these consultations. Data integration and referral processes also remain a barrier. In this workplan we will work with an outside Health entity (Northwell Health) to provide and develop E-Consults process and sustainability plan for small clinics in New York. Additionally, we will develop E-Consult process for small rural clinics in Mississippi using MS providers as well as Northwell providers.