By Taylor Boyd
Community Health Solutions (CHS) presented a potential plan to expand healthcare access in Patrick County to the Board of Supervisors at the Jan. 25 meeting.
Nancy Bell, public information officer of the West Piedmont Health District (WPHD), said the organization “put together a document that not only gives you a path forward, but also recommends how you might to get there financially or otherwise.”
Stephen Horan, PhD, founding President and CEO of CHS, said “our job was to conduct a feasibility analysis and operating plan for submitting healthcare access in Patrick County with a particular focus on telehealth solutions.”
He said the group’s objective was to learn about the county, the needs of county residents, and the assets of county health and service providers and the health district to develop a plan that “we hope would really fit without your community context.”
Telehealth strategies would help overcome the geographic problems of the county, he said.
“The community’s a very rural and mountainous area. There are transportation challenges and digital access challenges, and those things can get in the way of people getting healthcare, especially when they need it,” Horan said, and added that setting up telehealth stations at local EMS and rescue squad buildings would increase access to healthcare, especially for those that don’t have adequate digital access to do a telehealth appointment from home.
“Folks could travel to the rescue squad for a visit. The further away you live from say Patrick County Family Practice, and the more you live close to one of those rescue squads, the more it would make sense for you” to go there, Horan said.
“The rescue squad buildings have better WIFI there, and some equipment, space, and some folks who know their way around healthcare,” he said, adding telehealth visits are not limited to family practices.
“Telehealth networks can also help with health professional training. It can be used to help continuing education and can be used to support medical resident rotations. Most family practice residency directors said they don’t do enough training in telehealth. In that aspect, it could become an asset that actually draws residency rotations to Patrick County,” Horan said.
“It just seems to me that one of the major things we need is access to 24-hour emergency care. I understand that the telehealth will cover some of that,” Dr. Clyde DeLoach, of the Blue Ridge District, said.
“Dr. Cole has been working on doing that very thing. If we can get these stations put at the rescue squad buildings, he’s willing for his staff to work at night, at another shift, and do some telehealth visits even if it’s an emergency sort of situation he would have someone on call. We’re helping him apply for permission to do that from the state,” Bell said.
Horan said improving telehealth capabilities is possible due to funding changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“A lot of federal rule changes were made to facilitate a delivery of telehealth services that are paid for by Medicaid and Medicare. Some, but not all, private insurance health plans changed their rules as well. So, there are now more opportunities to deliver telehealth services than there were as of 2019,” he said, adding the question is if the funding flexibilities will stay in place after the pandemic is mitigated.
If the telehealth program started small by serving about five percent of the population, that would be around 2,250 telehealth visits per year, he said.
“So, the idea here would be to start small” and slowly expand from there, Horan said, and added that telehealth providers should start with the priority populations and provide those patients with outreach and tutorials on how to do telehealth.
“The good news is in 2020, we all learned how to do that with COVID,” he said, adding providers should also decide if they’d want to use phone or video appointments.
“What we’re suggesting is to start with some primary preventive care out of the gate, then over time add over time behavioral health, mental specialty care, emergency care,” and others, Horan said. “This is not to imply at all that primary care is more important than all these others, it’s just the primary care group is more ready to go, more shovel ready than the others.”
In other matters, the board:
*Discussed CenturyLink complaints and asked county residents to send complaints to their board representative or to county staff.
*Received a copy of the Directory of Community Services in Stuart and Patrick County from Rebecca Adcock, executive director of the Patrick County Chamber of Commerce. Adcock said copies of the directory are available at the chamber and WHEO. An electronic copy will be uploaded to the chamber’s website.
*Renewed the contract with Mary Earhart for accounting services for the remainder of fiscal year 2021.
*Awarded the bid for exclusive rights to collect, transport, and dispose of garbage and refuse within Patrick County to Rural Services.
*Discussed a tentative schedule for Board of Equalization meetings.
