Telehealth & Covid-19
RHTP Funds Telehealth. Telehealth Funds
Your Strategy. Know the Difference.
Most leaders think of telehealth as a clinical tool — a way to reach a patient who can't easily get to the clinic. That's true. It's also just a small part of what telehealth can [...]
Rural Health’s Leapfrog Transformation:
From In-Person- to Virtual-First
A few decades ago, much of the African continent skipped a stage of infrastructure that took the rest of the world a century to build. Many countries never built extensive landline networks — they [...]
Rural Health Implementation Science: TeleEmergency
In last week’s article, Kathy Letendre and I made the case that TeleEmergency is rural America's most urgent telehealth priority — and that the CMS Rural Health Transformation Program presents a great opportunity to fund [...]
Are Rural Hospitals Better Off Because of Telehealth?
A question that surfaces regularly among rural hospital leaders — and deserves a direct answer: "Are rural hospitals, critical access hospitals, and 'tweeners' better off financially as a result of telemedicine partnerships? Or are these partnerships driving down their Case [...]
RHTP’s Greatest Untapped Opportunity:
Building the Capability to Innovate
The Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) has attracted a lot of attention — and a lot of vendors. Within weeks of states announcing their RHTP funding awards, technology companies began marketing aggressively to rural healthcare organizations. Telehealth Booths. AI platforms. [...]
Buying Technology for RHTP Is Easy.
Driving RHTP Outcomes Is Not.
RHTP funding is arriving — and with it, a wave of technology purchasing decisions. Advanced imaging systems. Telehealth platforms. Remote patient monitoring programs. AI-powered scribing tools. Consumer-facing digital health solutions. Vendors are calling. Demos are being scheduled. Budget conversations are [...]
Preparing for RHTP RFPs:
What Rural Health Leaders can do NOW
The Rural Health Transformation Program has set a remarkable amount of activity into motion — 50 state applications submitted, awards issued, revised budgets under review, and RFPs at the state level are beginning to take shape. For most rural [...]
When Telehealth Gear Gathers Dust:
Why Equipment Funding Isn’t Enough
This article is based on a webinar presented by Jen Donathan, Shari Snyder, Ryan Baker, and Christian Milaster for Generation West Virginia’s Broadband Technical Assistance Webinar Series. There is a pattern we have seen play out across community health [...]
Consumer-Facing Digital Health Is Coming:
Are States and Rural Providers Ready?
When CMS designed the Rural Health Transformation Program, it made a deliberate bet: consumer-facing digital health technology — symptom checkers, remote monitoring devices, AI chatbots, chronic disease apps, digital navigation tools — could meaningfully address rural healthcare access barriers if [...]