The MA FQHC Telehealth Consortium was created for Federally Qualified Health Centers to collectively master telehealth so that their patients can access quality care despite the pandemic.
Prior to this, FQHCs usually struggled to make telehealth functional due to the expense, lack of reimbursement and access related issues.
The challenge:
Expenses involved in telehealth like laptops, webcams and headsets for provider-side enablement are expenses that FQHCs often cannot fit into their budgets. Patient side enablement and access is also a persistent issue while encouraging telehealth.
Due to disparities in income, patients have less access to the necessary equipment like phones, computers with cameras, tablets, reliable broadband needed to carry out telehealth appointment.
The solution:
Matt Mullaney, chief finance and strategy officer of Community Care Cooperative, the lead organization of the MA FQHC Telehealth Consortium said that the pandemic has made telehealth crucial for even primary care. Patients and providers are now open to this idea than ever.
The MA FQHC Telehealth Consortium had to get telehealth right and believed that through the consortium it could use collective force to increase telehealth training and resources to serve the vulnerable patients of Massachusetts and provide them quality care during the COVID-19 crisis.
Smartphones need data plans, and it isn’t easy to find the best price for device and data plan, the best terms if the device is lost or damaged and the best quality coverage for patients in a given geographical region.
The consortium is making efforts to work with a technology partner to bring experience and expertise to provide a solution to these questions.
Matt Mullaney said these are all the questions the FCC telehealth award program is helping to explore efficiently and pragmatically.
MA FQHC Telehealth Consortium, which has 28 community health centers, was awarded $939,627. These funds were meant to help the health center providers and patients to access telehealth via phone calls and videoconferencing, use connected thermometers and pulse oximeters in order to remotely monitor COVID-19 patients and connected blood pressure monitoring to help monitor hypertension patients.