Rural Hospital Association Expands Access to Telehealth Resources

Aiming to support rural communities in obtaining access to virtual care, Equum Medical has partnered with the National Rural Health Association (NRHA) to add telehealth resources to treatment practices.

As a nonprofit organization, the NHRA aims to use multiple methods of communication, education, and research to support rural healthcare organizations and improve the health of Americans residing in rural communities. It is comprised of 26,000 member organizations from across all 50 states.

Last week, the NHRA named a telehealth-enabled specialty care provider called Equum Medical as a pipeline partner. Equum Medical, which includes a national network of physicians, aims to help rural hospitals fill gaps in specialty care.

"We are pleased to add to our Partnership Program a company with Equum's depth and breadth of service, quality of physician network and track record of success in delivering much-needed specialist expertise to rural hospitals," said Larry Bedell, executive director of the NRHA Services Corp., in a press release. "Telehealth at this level is needed to maximize resources and efficiency to meet rural hospitals' goal of equitable, affordable and high-quality care for all patients."  

Equum leverages the telehealth infrastructure of its partner companies or the hospital it works with to deploy video and audio feeds. It also uses a proprietary algorithm to distribute the capacity of its specialist network.

Several Equum services will be shared with NRHA members, including tele-ED, which supports surge and early intervention; tele-critical care, which supports models of intensivist-led care; and virtual sitters, who provide remote observation services to limit the frequency of adverse events and help lower costs.

Equum services also include patient transfer tools to assist hospital flow, remote patient monitoring to support at-home care for high acuity conditions and telehealth implementation assistance.

"We welcome the opportunity to start a dialogue with NRHA members, many of whom depend on telehealth services to be able to provide comprehensive care and keep patients in the community," said Equum Medical CEO Corey Scurlock, MD, in the press release. "In addition to working with individual NRHA members, we want to use this partnership to provide information and insight to all rural providers on how to navigate profound changes going on in the healthcare industry."

The use of telehealth to close existing care gaps in rural America is becoming an increasingly common practice, bolstered by recent research.

The Hearing Norton Sound study conducted by the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences' Center for Hearing Health Equity found that telehealth could successfully be used to refer children residing in rural areas to hearing care specialists. Researchers came to this conclusion after observing that a telehealth-based referral method led patients to receive care faster and increased the likelihood of receiving follow-up care than the standard referral method.

Another study published in June found that appointment completion rates in rural areas increased through telehealth use. Researchers drew this conclusion following a retrospective cohort study, which indicated that appointment completion rates went up by 20 percent when using telehealth.