Feds Target Telehealth for Emergency Services in New Grant Program

Federal officials are offering grants to rural healthcare providers looking to use telehealth to improve emergency services, such as stroke, behavioral health or EMS care.

The Department of Health and Human Services is making money available through the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Telehealth Network Grant Program (TNGP) for rural providers who don’t have easy access to emergency care specialists. The goal is to help support telemedicine platforms that give these providers instant access to hospitals or health systems with specialists.

HHS is making roughly $8.7 million available for as many as 29 applicants, with no cost-sharing or matching requirement. The Closing date for applications is April 13.

The grants are designed for rural providers looking to establish or expand a telestroke network, improve access to care for behavioral health services or create a Tele-Emergency Medical Services (Tele-EMS) program. The latter is defined as “an electronic, two-way, audio/visual communication service between a central emergency healthcare center (Tele-emergency hub) and a distant hospital emergency department (ED or remote ED) deliver 24-hour Emergency Department (ED) consultation services via telehealth to rural providers without emergency care specialists. Tele-emergency is defined as “an electronic, two-way, audio/visual communication service between a central emergency healthcare center (Tele-emergency hub) and a distant hospital emergency department (ED) (remote ED) designed to provide real-time emergency care consultation.”

According to the HRSA, the services covered by the platform may include remote assessment, analysis of patient information, supervision of remote care providers or coordination of patient transfers from a rural site to a larger health system.

The grants are designed to help rural providers

• Expand access to, coordinate, and improve the quality of health care services;
• Improve and expand the training of health care providers; and
• Expand and improve the quality of health information available to health care providers, and patients and their families, for decision-making.

“The goal is for each (grant) recipient … to analyze the provision of Tele-emergency services under common metrics and protocols that will allow for a multi-site analysis of the effectiveness of those services,” the grant notice concludes. “Each of the recipients will participate in a broad-scale analysis and evaluation of the program coordinated by the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP) as well as individual award recipient analysis and evaluation.”