A patient’s ‘circle of care’ can include relatives, friends, a spiritual adviser or the pharmacist, not just doctors, nurses, or telehealth clinicians. Technology is helping bring them all together. BRIGITTE PELLERINJanuary 3, 2020 A fresh decade means fresh ideas. Brigitte Pellerin talks to some of the local people who...

Opportunity Avera eCARE, the world’s leading telehealth provider, is part of Avera Health, based in Sioux Falls, S.D. Avera eCARE delivers a wide continuum of services to meet varied needs of patients, clinicians and health systems, including Emergency, ICU, Pharmacy, Senior Care, Behavioral Health, Correctional Health, School Health, Hospitalist...

With the increased premium placed on preventing rehospitalizations from skilled nursing facilities, timely interventions from a doctor can potentially make a major difference. Between 2012 and 2014, about 10.4% of residents did not see a physician at all during their time in the skilled nursing facility, according to a...

Lawmakers are poised to reintroduce the RUSH Act, which aims to give SNFs more incentives to use telehealth and telemedicine to improve patient care and reduce rehospitalizations. By Eric Wicklund March 04, 2019 – A proposal to give skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) more incentives to use telehealth and telemedicine will...

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on Friday finalized its new set of rules for accountable care organizations (ACOs), removing the no-risk tracks that represented financial drains on Medicare and expanding three-day stay waivers for nursing homes. Under the new “Pathways to Success” model, most new ACOs...

Central Island Healthcare is using a telemedicine platform to triage its patients and reduce hospital readmissions. Its success with connected care has qualified the SNF for a hefty CMS reward in 2019. By Eric Wicklund December 13, 2018 – A telemedicine platform that provides real-time virtual care has helped a...

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued yet another sign of support for expanding the use of telehealth services in skilled nursing facilities, pointing to a variety of studies that show the technology can save the government money. Writing in a mandated report to Congress released earlier...