The California Telehealth Resource Center (CTRC) supports the continued optimization and expansion of telehealth. Working closely with community organizations, corporate and industry leaders, and policymakers, CTRC gives California health providers access to evidence-based practices and leading-edge solutions to help them confidently grow and innovate as the industry evolves.
To encourage meaningful new approaches in telehealth, CTRC continuously seeks opportunities to facilitate conversation, encourage learning, engage communities, share powerful stories, and partner with like-minded organizations.
CTRC promotes the use of various telehealth technologies that have the capacity to improve and streamline care, such as Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM). With the rising prevalence of chronic conditions and a shrinking health care workforce, remote care is more important than ever.
To facilitate the adoption of RPM programs, CTRC hosted a four-hour RPM learning event where attendees heard from policy experts, health centers with active RPM programs, and health care leaders.
Speakers covered numerous topics, ranging from real-world RPM program experience to RPM policy and reimbursement. With 241 total attendees, four hours of RPM content, and an overall satisfaction rating of 90%, the event was a resounding success! To view event materials, click here.
Participants enjoyed many benefits, including:
- Building foundational knowledge of RPM terms and staff roles
- How to assess, plan, and identify clinical use cases for RPM
- Strategies to select the right technology, set policies, and develop procedures for RPM program sustainability and success
- Experiences from several California clinical RPM programs
- Return on investment for RPM service offerings
- Best practices for effectively monitoring, analyzing, and managing large amounts of patient data
- How RPM service or vendor contracts differ from traditional telehealth services
- Tips for developing RPM contracts
- Insights into Medi-Cal policy and pharmacy benefit changes
- Primer on RPM policy, how RPM is regulated, and what can be reimbursed
- Recommendations for a plan of action and authority to make meaningful advancements in remote patient monitoring, remote therapeutic monitoring, and continuous monitoring policies
- Participation in a live question-and-answer session
The CTRC RPM Learning Event: Learn, Engage, Advance event began with a welcome message Diana Camacho, California Health Care Foundation’s (CHCF) Senior Program Officer, introducing the audience to CHCF and the importance of RPM. Next, participants heard from Lindsey Haase, former Executive Director of CTRC, learning about the organization’s mission, team, and various offerings. The Kickoff Session wrapped up with an information-rich overview of RPM from William England, former Senior Advisor for HRSA’s Office for the Advancement of Telehealth. Topics discussed included the differences between remote patient monitoring and remote therapeutic monitoring (RTM), examples of supporting research for RPM, where to find several online resources for RPM, and the various RPM and RTM codes currently in place.
Following the kickoff, attendees heard from a variety of subject matter experts in the Policy and Reimbursement Panel. This highly popular session included information on RPM reimbursement codes, Medicare vs Medi-Cal requirements for RPM reimbursement, current RPM policy, and much more.
Panel members included:
- Sylvia Trujillo, Senior Director of Policy and Advocacy (OCHIN)
- Andy Molnar, Chief Executive Officer (Digital Therapeutics Alliance)
- Carol Yarbrough, Telehealth Business Operations Manager (UC San Francisco)
- Robert Jarrin, Digital Health Strategic Advisor (Digital Therapeutics Alliance)
- Vimal Mishra, Director of Digital Health (American Medical Association)
- James Marcin, Director of Pediatric Critical Care (UC Davis Health)
The day continued with the highly popular Expert Program Highlights session, where attendees heard from a variety of California health centers with active RPM programs. The health centers shared their successes and limitations with RPM, their sustanability plans and overall return on investment (ROI), what RPM technology they employ, and how they utilize the subsequent health data generated by patients.
Participating health centers included:
- Lifelong Medical Care
- Neighborhood Health Care
- Northeast Valley Health Corporation
- Universal Community Health Centers of Los Angeles
- Ace Home Health and Hospice
- Contra Costa Health Plan
The final session leveraged breakout rooms, where participants could choose to join specialized and interactive RPM discussions. Attendees engaged in valuable discourse with peers, connected with industry experts, and shared ideas through the use of jamboards.
Breakout room topics included:
- Patient Experience
- Sustainability
- Clinical Applications
- Policy Changes
Remote Patient Monitoring: Learn, Engage, Advance concluded with final reflections. Participants completed a poll which included questions on satisfaction, information learned, and what RPM topics participants would like to see CTRC cover in the future. Popular topics included policy, technology, and sustainability. Audience members expressed an interest in continued RPM learning. CTRC will continue to expand our RPM resources, via our Remote Patient Monitoring webpage.
The CTRC team thanks everyone who was able to attend! If you missed the session, you can view follow-up materials such as our Q&A document, slide decks, and recordings here.
Importantly, we would also like to thank our wonderful event partners, CHCF and our many participating health centers! Without you, this would not have been possible.
