Federal Funding for Emergency Home Visits for Families Includes Telehealth

The federal government is releasing $40 million in pandemic relief funding to support emergency home visits for underserved families, and is expanding the service to include telehealth.

The Health and Human Services Department announced this week that funding from the American Rescue Plan would be awarded through the Health Resources and Services Administration to the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Program. MIECHV “supports the delivery of coordinated and comprehensive, high quality, voluntary, evidence-based home visiting services to children and families living in communities at risk for poor maternal and child health outcomes.”

While many of these services are delivered in person, the program is being expanded to take into account the challenges associated with the coronavirus pandemic. Funds will be set aside to facilitate connected health visits with families, and to train home visitors on how to conduct intimate partner violence screenings via telehealth.

“Through innovative programs like MIECHV, HRSA is committed to improving health and achieving health equity,” HRSA Acting Administrator Diana Espinosa said in a press release. “This funding will help bolster evidence-based programs and services that can be a lifeline for low-income parents and families in communities across the country.”

In all, 56 organizations across the country are receiving funding for the program.

The addition of virtual visits isn’t just a by-product of COVID-19. Government agencies and healthcare providers are beginning to use telehealth to address social determinants of health, or economic, social and other factors that contribute to health outcomes.

For underserved families, that may include barriers to accessing healthcare, such as transportation, child care, employment (or lack thereof), lack of providers or a distrust of the healthcare system. It may also include a lack of resources to use telehealth.