Innovative Uses of Telehealth: Sports Telemedicine

What are some possible applications of telemedicine with athletes and sport participants? An Examination of Sports Telemedicine, recently published in the TIE's news section looks at how sports therapy can be used with telecommunication technologies.

New Legislation Would Increase Funding for Telemedicine

Congressmen Mike Thompson, D-California recently introduced telemedicine legislation would provide $30 million in grants to help health facilities pay for telehealth equipment and expand telehealth support services. Currently about 80% of Americans do not have access to telemedicine because of restrictions that limit funding for these types of facilities to rural areas. The Medicare Telehealth Enhancement Act (House Resolution 2068) would expand Medicare reimbursement to urban and suburban areas and include more facilities, the press release states. It will also allow doctors to monitor patients remotely.

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Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction Publishes RFP for Teletherapy Project

The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) in Washington State is providing a bidding opportunity on a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a "Special Education and Related Services Teletherapy Pilot Project".

OSPI is initiating this RFP to solicit proposals from firms, school districts, institutes of higher education, medical facilities, and other agencies interested in participating on a project to develop, implement, and evaluate a teletherapy pilot program to provide designated special education and/or related services to students with disabilities ages three (3) through twenty-one (21) from rural, suburban, and urban locations within Washington State. The objective is to provide speech language, occupational, and physical therapy services via point-to-point teletherapy technologies in pilot public school districts that, due to unfilled personnel vacancies and/or personnel shortages, do not currently have the required special education-related service providers to implement services identified on special education students' individual education plans.

For more information, please read the complete RFP file available here.

New Hampshire Senate Passes Telemedicine Reimbursement Bill

Health insurers would no longer be able to require that a doctor meet a patient face-to-face in order to be reimbursed under a bill passed recently by the New Hampshire Senate. Senate Bill 138, which defines telemedicine and requires its coverage, passed the Senate on a 17-5 roll call vote. The measure now goes to the House for approval.

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Search Engines as Early Warning Epidemic Monitors

Google has come up with an innovative use of the Internet and health information. The NY Times recently noted:

One of Google’s geniuses figured out that whenever people get sick, they use Google to search for more information. By collating these searches, Google has created an early-warning system for flu outbreaks in your area, with color-coded graphs. Google says that Flu Trends has recognized outbreaks two weeks sooner than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has.

As Google aptly stated, this is an exciting development, because early detection of a disease outbreak can reduce the number of people affected. Google also published a paper on the research behind their Flu Trends in an article in Nature entitled Detecting influenza epidemics using search engine query data.

Specific Telemedicine Spending in Final Stimulus Bill

The recently passed $787 billion economic stimulation bill includes $19 billion for health information technology (HIT). Specific for telemedicine, it will provide $4.7 billion for NTIA’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, $2.5 billion for USDA’s Distance Learning, Telemedicine, and Broadband Program, $1.5 billion for HRSA to use to build or repair health centers and/or to purchase equipment, and $85 million for health IT and telehealth technologies within the Indian Health Service. In addition ot this, much of the other HIT money will most likely have telehealth applications. (Source: Federal Telemedicine News)

Two Telehealth Grant Application Windows Open

Fiscal Year 2009 application window is open for the Rural Development's Distance Learning and Telemedicine (DLT) Grant Program, subject to the availability of funding. The grant may be used to fund telecommunications-enabled information, audio and video equipment and related advanced technologies extend educational and medical applications into rural locations. Grants are made for projects where the benefit is primarily delivered to end users that are not at the same location as the source of the education or health care service. The application deadline is March 24, 2009. More information is here.

Also, HRSA recently released updated information on the Telehealth Network Grant Program (TNGP). The primary objective of the TNGP is to show how telehealth programs and networks improve access to quality healthcare services in underserved rural and urban communities. The funding for the program is $3,430,000 with 14 awards expected. The closing date for applications is March 6, 2009. More information is here.