Mar 6
2020
Healthcare From Anywhere: Study Looks At The Impact of Telehealth In Rural America
Connected Nation (CN), through its state program Connected Nation Michigan (CN Michigan), released a study that examines the use and perceptions of telehealth in rural areas with a focus on Michigan counties.
Researchers found, among other things, the highest ratios in the country of patients per doctor, a lower-than-average life expectancy, and a higher-than-average number of preventable hospital stays in rural states with restrictive telehealth policies.
“This study demonstrates why connecting rural America is critical,” said Tom Ferree, chairman & CEO, CN. “Connected Nation has worked for nearly two decades to identify innovative solutions for connecting every community, and in that time, we’ve seen firsthand that having access to high-speed internet impacts everything from the economy to educating our children. Now we have real data that shows it can also impact healthcare—and even life expectancies—among families and individuals in our rural communities and small towns through telehealth applications and programs.”
The more than six-month-long study was done in partnership with AARP and the Michigan Health Endowment Fund. Find the full report at http://bit.ly/2ThWBPX. The study looks at the opportunities and reasons for expanding telehealth as well as the obstacles for rural areas.
“Many older adults in Michigan, especially those who live in rural areas, do not have access to high-speed internet, and that’s a quality-of-life issue for them,” said Paula D. Cunningham, State Director of AARP Michigan. “That means they can’t take advantage of advances in telemedicine that at the very least could save them long trips to the doctor, and at the most could be lifesaving.”
“Our nonprofit has long been focused on connecting more families and communities to high-speed internet,” said Eric Frederick, executive director, CN Michigan. “In recent years, we’ve seen more talk about the ways telehealth could help fill the void in rural areas where there may not be hospitals or doctors for hundreds of miles. But, as we looked around for more detailed information on telehealth in Michigan, we soon learned there were a lot of unanswered questions at the intersection of telehealth and the digital divide that we decided to set out and answer—from how state policies impact the use of technology to whether people or providers even understand the many ways it can be used.”
CN Michigan’s researchers took a three-pronged approach to examine those issues. First, they reviewed the current telehealth policies in all 50 states to identify counties ripe for leveraging the benefits of telehealth. As part of this analysis, CN Michigan compared each county’s access to primary care physicians and health outcomes to determine how big of a role telehealth policies and the Digital Divide play in these metrics.
Second, the team conducted telephone surveys of 2,001 adult heads of households in five rural Michigan counties: Gladwin, Sanilac, Roscommon, Osceola, and Dickinson.
“We chose these five counties because they represent a cross-section of rural portions of the state,” said Chris McGovern, Director, Research Development, Connected Nation (CN). “They were selected due to their differences and representative nature in terms of geography, employment, and the prominence of non-related healthcare provision networks in each county. We focused our questions on current telehealth usage, savings experienced from accessing online healthcare, interest in future use of telehealth services, and barriers that prevent individuals from using the technology.”
The third facet of this study focused on healthcare providers. CN Michigan conducted extended interviews and focus groups with healthcare networks, including doctors, nurses, medical assistants, and others within the five counties identified for telephone surveys. Healthcare networks in these groups ranged from just beginning to experiment with telehealth to those with established and award-winning telehealth programs.
“Although our focus was primarily on the impact in rural Michigan, this data can help inform the development of telehealth services elsewhere and provide a starting point for additional studies in regions across the United States,” said Frederick. “Our hope is to build upon what we’ve learned in this study and help more people in both rural and urban areas save time and money through telehealth applications and expanding broadband access. Most importantly, we hope it will lead to innovations that can improve the quality of life for all Americans—no matter where they live.”
Key findings from the study: