Blog

January 16, 2026 By Sylvia Trujillo, MPP, JD and Emilia Ochoa-Ruiz, MS, PMP Rural communities across California are facing a familiar pattern. When specialty access is limited and travel distances are long, patients often bypass local care to seek services elsewhere. This can result in delayed care, fragmented follow-up, or care that never happens at all.Read more

January 13, 2026 By Emilia Ochoa-Ruiz, MS, PMP Manager, California Telehealth Resource Center Maternal Health Day is more than a date on the calendar. It is a call to action to strengthen access to safe, high-quality care for mothers and families, especially those in rural and underrepresented communities. At the California Telehealth Resource Center (CTRC),Read more

January 5, 2026 By Jocelyn Jaime, MA Project Coordinator, California Telehealth Resource Center Effective January 1 – December 31, 2026 New Development The DEA and HHS have issued a fourth one-year extension of pandemic-era telehealth flexibilities for prescribing controlled medications. These flexibilities remain under the same requirements as previous extensions. Why This Matters This extensionRead more

Published December 10, 2025 By Emilia Ochoa-Ruiz, MS, PMP Manager, California Telehealth Resource Center Toolkit Spotlight: The AI C-Suite Overview Toolkit  Helping executives lead confidently into the future of healthcare innovation  If there’s one thing every healthcare executive can agree on right now, it’s this: the demands on leadership have never been higher. Shrinking workforces.Read more

Published November 20, 2025 By Laura Tyrone, JD, MPH California’s 2025 legislative session brought a clear focus on digital health: lawmakers doubled down on AI transparency and safety, advanced data-exchange and telehealth infrastructure, and continued to bolster patient privacy. Across committees, two themes dominated — oversight of AI used in or adjacent to clinical care,Read more

Published November 18, 2025 By Jan Ileto, Policy and Regulatory Affairs Manager   With recent congressional action and evolving CMS guidance, providers may face confusion about what’s currently allowed and what is not. Please find the specific information you need below to navigate the current complexity. This table has been updated to account for updates, clarifications,Read more

Published November 14, 2025 By Sylvia Trujillo, MPP, JD A Message to C-Suite Leaders Facing Shrinking Resources, Workforce Strain, and Growing Demand Across rural and small-community health organizations, you’re facing a daunting combination: reimbursement pressures (including threats to Medicaid and 340B funding), rising administrative burden, persistent staff shortages, and increasing complexity of care. But it’s notRead more

November 14, 2025 | Sylvia Trujillo, Executive Director On November 6, 2025, the FDA’s Digital Health Advisory Committee convened a public meeting to explore how generative AI—especially large language models—is transforming digital mental health tools. The Committee has not yet promulgated new regulations, but the meeting clearly signaled that regulatory expectations are evolving for AI‑enabled tools in mental healthRead more

Published June 26, 2025 By Sylvia Trujillo, MPP, JD and Laken Harrel, MPH  Telehealth, Remote Monitoring, and AI Are Rising—But What’s Standing in the Way?  Across the U.S., digital health is gaining momentum. From telehealth and remote management services to artificial intelligence (AI) enabled services that promise to transform care delivery, the future of healthcare isRead more

Published June 16, 2025 By Sylvia Trujillo, MPP, JD and Miguel Angel Del Villar, BSN, RN, CSN In part one of this series we talked about why early detection of vision issues is so important, especially for children with developmental disabilities, how telehealth screenings work in schools, and why compliance with state guidelines matters forRead more