Behavioral Health Integrator

As health centers are charting their path forward with telehealth after the public health emergency ends, it will be critical to have methods in place to comprehensively assess the current experiences, capabilities, attitudes, and preferences of providers. Telehealth program improvements should be grounded in a real understanding of these factors to ensure readiness of all providers. This question bank serves as a collection of questions that can be used to assess health care providers’ perspectives on telehealth. Users of the question bank can select questions that most closely match their needs and use those to create a survey, or to supplement existing surveys. Surveying primary care providers can provide valuable insights that can help organizations improve their telehealth programs, support their providers, and ultimately provide better care to their patients.

Providers are burnt out and most expect it to get worse. Burnout is typically defined as a psychological response to job stressors characterized by emotional exhaustion, detachment, and a sense of ineffectiveness. Investigations of burnout in primary care have usually focused on factors associated with burnout among individual clinicians. But, it may be more useful to think about organizational-level burnout, which can shift the focus from individual responsibility to organizational solutions. This piece outlines organizational-level approaches to use address provider burden with health IT.

Drawing on recently published research from Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s EvidenceNOW initiative, Dr. Samuel Edwards shared insights for primary care practices seeking to assess and address provider burnout. Dr. Edwards highlighted associations between the use of quality improvement strategies, EHR capabilities, and satisfaction among practices with zero-burnout versus high-burnout. Key, and sometimes surprising, takeaways regarding leadership, workplace environment and culture, EHR use, and more from this research were discussed.

As health centers have newly established, scaled and/or enhanced their telehealth services during the pandemic year, they have navigated a variety of challenges, including policy and practice changes, logistics of implementation, privacy and security considerations, connectivity issues, ensuring quality services and patient and provider satisfaction. As health centers continue to refine their telehealth services amidst a changing context, the HITEQ Center is pleased to offer a panel of telehealth experts to address health center questions.  Panelists offer expertise in: set up and implementation of telehealth; clinical workflows, roles and training; hybrid care; patient-centered services; remote patient monitoring; telebehavioral health; telehealth optimization, maturity and performance management.

View the HITEQ Center's Telehealth Operations and Quality: Ask Anything  session. The session,  moderated by HITEQ’s Training and Technical Assistance Advisor, Natalie Truesdell, will provide an open forum for health centers to ask panelists their most pressing questions about telehealth services in the health center setting, such as:

• How can we fully integrate telehealth into our overall care delivery model?
• What are the ways in which telehealth may alleviate and/or add to provider burden?
•  Can you describe other health centers’ experiences with the unintended consequences of transitioning to telehealth?
• How do we ensure health equity when refining our telehealth and in-person care?
• What recommendations do you have for patients with limited digital proficiency?
• What might be the best approach to optimizing care for patients with chronic conditions?
• How can we improve our care team communication when so many staff are working remotely?
• What recommendations do you have for quick training of providers on patient interaction through telehealth?
• How can telehealth be more than a ‘transactional’ interaction?
• Can it be used to provide more touchpoints through different levels of care?
• What's the best way to assess telehealth success?

Please note: This session will be focused on telehealth operational and quality questions, and will not cover questions related to telehealth reimbursement, financing or policy changes at the state or federal level.

The session features the following panelists:

• Emma Ansara,  RN, MS, MA, FNP-C, Integrated Care Expert at the HITEQ Center
• Samantha Lippolis, MPA, Physician Practices Telemedicine Advisor & Consultant with Ingenium Digital Health Advisors
• Shane McBride, MBA, Founder & CEO of Chiron Strategy Group
• Christian Milaster, MS, Founder & CEO, Digital Health Transformation Advisor & Consultant with Ingenium Digital Health Advisors

The  60 minute session will start with panelists answering questions submitted by health centers during registration for the event.

Objectives

• Provide information and guidance to health centers across a variety of telehealth topics.
• Share ideas, tactics, and resources for implementing and optimizing telehealth services and virtual care