Transcript Sullivan County Public Health Services Telehealth Program

Sullivan County Public Health
Services Telehealth Program
Interventions to Reduce Re-Hospitalizations
SC PHS Telehealth Program
• Telehealth is designed to use technology to
provide adjunctive education to patients and
their family about their disease entity.
• Provides additional objective data which the
healthcare provider can use to adjust
medications, and monitor the patient’s
progress.
SC PHS Telehealth Program
• Nationwide, the use of telehealth technology is widely
available.
• The VA instituted telehealth regionally in 2003 and
nationally in 2007. Currently, the VA program has
50,000 patients enrolled in their Telehealth Programs.
SC PHS Telehealth Program
• For CHHA patients, the
targeted diagnoses are: coronary
artery disease, hypertension,
congestive heart disease, post
coronary bypass graft (CABG)and
diabetes.
SC PHS Telehealth Program
• Our goal is the reduction of Emergency Room
utilization and/or unnecessary
re-hospitalizations,
• For SCPHS this will translate to increased
continuity of care of the patient.
SC PHS Telehealth Program
• In the future we hope to obtain a grant to
offer telehealth monitoring to antepartum
women with gestational diabetes and/or
pregnancy induced hypertension.
• For this demographic we will use cell phones
to transmit the TH information.
SC PHS Telehealth Program
• Currently, the TH program is in the
education/marketing stage.
• Full implementation of our program is
scheduled for mid-July 2012.
SC PHS Telehealth Program
• SPHNs can help ensure the success of the TH
program by:
 Remind field RNs to identify appropriate potential
TH patients.
 Reminding field RNs to hand in the Telehealth
Risk Assessment tool at SOC.