Becker's Hospital Review

70 CIO / HEALTH IT Telehealth grows up: 5 key trends in hospital-based telehealth programs By Julie Spitzer A growing number of hospitals are rec- ognizing the value of implementing a hospital-based telehealth program, with nearly 94 percent of respondents of a Te- ladoc survey rating it a top strategic priority. At Becker's Hospital Review's 9th Annual Con- ference in Chicago April 11, Alan Roga, MD, president of hospitals and health systems at Teladoc, shared the results of a survey the company commissioned with Becker's in 2017 to show the maturity of the telehealth market in an ever-changing healthcare industry. "e most successful programs align their consumer telehealth program to their or- ganizational goals," Dr. Roga said. "is is a strategy discussion and successful programs align these [telehealth] programs to their or- ganizational goals." In its second annual state of consumer tele- health benchmark survey, Teladoc tapped 274 respondents, most of whom are executives or directors primarily from hospitals with more than 100 beds. Dr. Roga compared these re- sults against those from the 2016 survey. Here are five key market changes Teladoc revealed between its 2016 and 2017 survey findings. 1. Shi to existing patient populations. e majority (63 percent) of systems with tele- health programs already in place are planning to expand them. One of the main focus areas is a shi toward providing care to existing pa- tient populations (48 percent) which showed a threefold increase from one year prior. 2. Significant change in direct-to-consum- er approach. More and more hospitals are changing their direct-to-consumer approach, moving away from true retail telehealth pro- grams and shiing more toward employer populations. Hospitals are also most oen re- lying on vendors to provide on-demand, mi- nor medical care consultations for these di- rect-to-consumer initiatives and staffing with their own providers for appointments like postoperative follow ups. Although telehealth programs should not solely be viewed as rev- enue drivers, they are able to wield a positive return on investment if implemented correctly. "Focus on your patient populations, think twice about direct-to-consumer … under- stand what you are getting yourself into," Dr. Roga said. 3. Hospitals are shiing to their own providers. As patient volumes increase — hospitals re- porting more than 10,000 annual telehealth visits spiked 50 percent in 2017 — hospitals are increasingly staffing their telehealth pro- grams with their own providers. About 57 percent of respondents said their telehealth programs are staffed internally, up from 42 percent in 2016. Additionally, physicians are warming up to telehealth, and the fears they once had that telehealth would take patients and business away from them are starting to disintegrate. "Now [physicians] are realizing the problem with telehealth ... is the 'tele' part — this is medical care. You've got an outpatient sur- gery center, a CT scan, MRI and you can have a platform to deliver virtual care so doctors now want to be more of a part of it." Dr. Roga said. 4. EHR integration as a barrier is decreasing. Reimbursement remains a top challenge, but EHR integration as a perceived barrier de- creased 62 percent in 2017 and is now only cited as a challenge by 8 percent of respon- dents. 5. Marketing support is being recognized. ough respondents cited securing physician buy-in (67 percent) as the No. 1 key to pro- gram success, organizations are beginning to value marketing support, with 25 percent of respondents rating a telehealth vendor's mar- keting capabilities among the most important attributes. n CMS makes Medicare Advantage encounter data available for first time ever By Julie Spitzer C MS is making Medicare Advantage encounter data available to re- searchers to better understand care trends for seniors, Administrator Seema Verma announced April 26. Researchers can access Medicare claims data for the fee-for-service program, CMS noted, but this expansion of MA data availability will provide deeper, more valuable insights into the care provided to Medicare beneficiaries, as well as how they make their healthcare decisions. "We recognize that the MA data is not perfect, but we have determined that the quality of the available MA data is adequate enough to support research," Ms. Verma said during the Health Datapalooza conference April 26 in Wash- ington, D.C., according to the Washington Examiner. "And although this is our first release, going forward, we plan to make this data available annually. And we're not stopping with MA data." CMS released preliminary encounter data, starting with calendar year 2015, and next year the agency plans to release data from Medicaid and the Chil- dren's Health Insurance Program — giving researchers access to 70 million pa- tients' information. However, the information would not personally identify patients and research- ers would be required to request it via a proposal. The effort is part of CMS' new Data Driven Patient Care strategy, announced April 26 and rolled under its MyHealthEData initiative. The approach had three core tenets: putting patients first, adopting an "API-first approach to data shar- ing" and increasing the amount of available data. It is part of the agency's push toward interoperability, which also includes CMS' Blue Button 2.0 and Promot- ing Interoperability program, the most recent iteration of meaningful use. n

• Cover