Telehealth & Covid-19
The Proof of Concept Worked.
Now the Hard Part Starts.
The proof of concept worked.At its main clinic, a rural health center had tested a new tele-endocrinology service for its patients with diabetes. One experienced nurse presented each patient to the specialist on screen. The [...]
Everybody Agreed Until Somebody Wrote It Down
The leadership meeting went well. A rural health center had decided to bring in a tele-endocrinologist. Diabetes was the most common chronic condition on its panel, and the nearest endocrinologist was a three-hour round trip [...]
The Telehealth Pilot That “Went Fine” —
Yet Went Nowhere
Ninety days in, the numbers looked good. The rural clinic had enrolled about twenty-five patients with uncontrolled hypertension in remote patient monitoring. Patients liked the cuffs. Readings were coming in. The monitoring nurse said the [...]
Digital Health Solutionization:
From Start to Sustainability
Most digital health services that fade away were never designed to last. They were approved, purchased and launched, and then kept alive by whoever cared most. Whether a new service is still running two years later is rarely decided at [...]
Most Telehealth Rollouts Have Two Phases.
They Need Five.
A rural hospital board decides it's time for telehealth. Someone loops in IT. IT writes a request for proposal, a vendor gets selected within a few months, and eighteen months later the service is underused, clinicians tolerate it rather [...]
In Digital Health, Turning On the Vendor Is the Last Step, Not the First
While the CMS RHTP program was announced over a year ago, it is not until these months in the fall of 2026 that we are beginning to see organizations receiving actual contracts to start their transformation of health care in [...]
Can Your Funded RHTP Project
Create the Outcomes Required by CMS?
In this first wave of RHTP funding, many rural healthcare leaders in all 50 states either have or are about to receive their award notice. But once the excitement wears off (usually during the time it takes the state to [...]
Telehealth Adoption Resistance Is a Confidence Gap, Not an Attitude Problem
The CMS Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) puts telehealth at the center of rural care delivery — and for good reason. Across the country, rural health centers and clinics that spent the post-pandemic years treating telehealth as an emergency workaround [...]
The AI Call That Concerns Patients Isn’t a Technical Bug — It’s a Process Design Gap
A patient picks up the phone. The voice on the other end sounds calm and competent — until it doesn't quite fit. Maybe it stumbles over a name. Maybe it asks a question that doesn't match what just happened at [...]