Digital SolutionsWashington Telehealth Consortium
The Washington Telehealth Consortium seeks to create the Washington Telehealth Exchange
The Washington Telehealth Consortium (WTC) is a growing statewide group of telehealth users and providers who are focused on designing, funding and implementing a statewide telehealth network that leverages existing telecommunications infrastructure, affordably connects the state's telehealth networks and facilitates access to telehealth services.
Institutional members* of the WTC include:
- The Association of Washington Public Hospital Districts
- The Washington State Hospital Association
- Inland Northwest Health Services
- University of Washington Medicine
- Virginia Mason Medical Center
- GCI
- Forks Community Hospital
- Garfield County Memorial Hospital
* - Membership is signified through an MOU.
Definition for Telehealth & Telemedicine
The use of electronic communications networks for the transmission of information and data focused on health promotion, disease prevention, diagnosis, consultation, education, and/or therapy, and the public's overall health including patient/community education and information, population-based data collection and management, and linkages for health care resources and referrals. Although telehealth is sometimes considered broader in scope than telemedicine, there is no clear-cut distinction between the two.
Source: Telemedicine Information Exchange
WTC seeks a Shared Delivery Care Model for Washington
Shared health care is a model of integrated health care delivery in which the collaboration among practitioners of different disciplines or with different skills and knowledge allows for the delivery of patient health care by the most appropriate health care practitioner.
Source: International Journal of Integrated Care. 2006 Oct-Dec; 6: e18.
WTC's Vision for Telehealth
An effective and sustainable statewide telehealth/telemedicine network that connects hundreds of sites, including: rural hospitals, rural clinics, tribal health centers, public health departments, mental health service providers, research centers, and urban hospitals.
Known as the Washington Telehealth Exchange (WTE), this network will enable the interconnected marketplace for telehealth and telemedicine services and information in Washington.
The WTE will...
- ... be an open, robust, multi-purpose telehealth/telemedicine and information network available to all health service vendors (including independent telehealth networks), hospitals and healthcare clinics operating in Washington State.
- ... provide fee-based telehealth services and applications over a statewide network backbone by creating a "marketplace" that facilitates and aggregates the demand for, and supply of, telehealth/telemedicine solutions.
Five Expected Outcomes of WTE
Improved healthcare quality and cost effectiveness by:
- Connecting rural health providers to telehealth content and services - improving patient access to medical specialists
- Bringing professional education opportunities to rural healthcare providers
- Linking medical research centers to the "practicing" healthcare community to foster adoption of clinical best practice
- Leveraging statewide connectivity to ensure rapid, integrated and coordinated response to a regional or national emergency
- Working toward the adoption of a common Electronic Medical Record standard
WTE Design Principles
- Network users must meet and adhere to established security and quality standards.
- Network architecture must be open, scalable, and accessible to users and providers.
- Network design must be feasible, fundable and sustainable.
- Network must serve the reasonable expectations of rural users.
Four Proposed Actions to Create WTE
- Gather all available information on current telehealth infrastructure, equipment, and services that can be leveraged to interconnect Washington's telehealth networks, hospitals, and clinics.
- Identify gaps in available connectivity for rural hospitals and clinics.
- Strengthen infrastructure capacity at sites that are not able to access and utilize telehealth applications and services.
- Pursue funding needed to interconnect existing telehealth networks and ameliorate infrastructure weaknesses at select rural hospitals and clinics.
AWPHD currently leads the WTC and is supported by four groups in the development of the WTE:
- Steering Committee
- Network Design Task Group
- Governance Task Group
- Funding Task Group
WTC Currently Seeks Funding to build the WTE
- FCC Rural Healthcare Pilot Program
12 month project
$857,138 ($807,508)
Decision: Sept-Nov 2007 - Life Science Discovery Fund
18 month project
$529,117
Decision: Sept 2007
FCC Grant Proposal
Objectives
- A comprehensive Statewide Network Design (plan) that provides affordable, scaleable, access to telehealth services for a broad range of rural healthcare facilities
- An applied model for telehealth information exchange across the private-public network boundaries that complies with existing federal and state regulations and resolves settlement issues regarding the exchange of fee-based services and information.
- A scalable web portal providing a directory of telehealth services from all participating telehealth networks, a master calendar for scheduling telehealth events across telehealth boundaries, and a basic video conferencing scheduling system.
LSDF Grant Proposal
Objectives
This applied research project will address two categories of barriers preventing many Washington State hospitals and medical clinics from utilizing telehealth and telemedicine applications and services.
Project Partners
- Association of Washington Public Hospital Districts
- Forks Community Hospital
- Garfield County Hospital District
- Kittitas Valley Hospital
- Inland Northwest Health Services
- North Valley Hospital
- Ocean Beach Hospital
- University of Washington Computing and Communications
- WSU Center to Bridge the Digital Divide
Methods / Activities
A two-stage, multi-method aproach to answer two interrelated research questions:
- How does the value perspective of telehealth and telemedicine among administration, technical and medical staff affect adoption of telehealth and telemedicine applications and services?
- How do shortages of financial, technical and human resources affect adoption of telehealth and telemedicine applications and services?
The framework of the research plan consists of four distinct data collection methods: 20 Interviews, 5 Case Studies, 100 Telephone Surveys, and 60 Site Assessments.
