Oklahoma Launches Telemedicine Platform for Rural COVID-19 Guidance

Oklahoma has launched a telemedicine program to help rural providers get a better understanding of how to treat patients during the Coronavirus pandemic.

Prompted by Governor Kevin Stitt’s March 15 state of emergency declaration, the Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences launched the Project ECHO COVID-19 service line with more than 150 participating care providers across the state. Designed for rural practitioners, hospitals, nursing homes and other care providers, the connected health platform meets online Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings.

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Developed in 2003 at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Project ECHO (Extension for Community Health Outcomes) programs use the hub-and-spoke telemedicine model to deliver education, peer support and other resources to rural and remote care providers on any number of topics, from chronic care management to population health concerns. The model is no in use in close to 200 locations across the country and in more than 25 other countries.

The latest program is one of several run by OSU.

“This is a rapidly evolving situation and our expert COVID-19 Oklahoma Update ECHO team closely monitors the prevalence and transmission rates of the virus and shares knowledge with healthcare providers across Oklahoma of best-practices in the diagnosis, treatment and containment of this disease,” Tara Jackson, executive director of the OSU-CHS Project ECHO program, said in a press release issued by the university.

“The goal with this ECHO program is to address the changes in health practice and provide information necessary to flatten the curve of spread in our communities,” added Joseph Johnson, the associate dean for Project ECHO at the OSU Center for Health Sciences.

OSU has been at the center of an extensive effort to use telehealth to improve access to care across the state. The health system has been expanding its telemedicine network over the past month to connect with rural hospitals and communities, and this past week added 10 critical access and sole community provider hospitals to the network.

“Telemedicine is ideal for rural hospitals in the midst of our COVID-19 pandemic, providing them access to innovative technology, high-quality clinical expertise, and health care delivery modalities that allow patients to receive enhanced hospital care and treatment in the comfort of their local community,” Rhett Stover, CEO of OSU Medicine, told the Oklahoma City Journal Record. “Additionally, when rural hospitals are able to treat more patients close to home, urban medical centers can increase their capacity to handle the most complicated patients.”

Through the OSU Telehealth Solution platform, care providers at the hospitals – so classified because they’re in rural areas more than 35 miles distant from another hospital have less than 25 beds and operate an active emergency department – can access telehospitalists at OSU to analyze vital signs and assist in treatment.

“The recent rapid adoption of telemedicine services, accelerated by our nation’s COVID-19 emergency response measures, has created additional access to care in order to accommodate corresponding increases in patient demand for health care services across all health care communities,” Stover told the newspaper. “Fewer restrictions have resulted in a more inviting, broadly accessible approach to organizing clinical services and treatment through the provision of telemedicine, opening the service to care for more patients and COVID-19 stimulus money is providing funding to allow more Critical Access Hospitals in rural Oklahoma to participate in virtual medical care.”