The American Telehealth Association (ATA) has released three new tools via its Advisory Group on Using Telehealth to Eliminate Disparities and Inequities within healthcare. The tools are intended to highlight the ways in which telehealth can impact disparities and inequities.
Ann Mond Johnson, CEO of the ATA, said, “We launched the advisory group in 2021 to address the unique ways telehealth could be used to eliminate health disparities in the U.S. We are confident that the tools we are launching will support decision-making related to targeting and funding interventions that improve health in communities.” She added, “Our Advisory Group is comprised of national healthcare leaders uniquely focused on health disparities. Their groundbreaking work will further position our community to leverage telehealth to eliminate healthcare disparities.”
The tools were launched to commemorate the third annual Telehealth Awareness Week, and will highlight the “value telehealth brings to patients and helps to expand access to quality care, how virtual care is addressing many of the challenges faced by healthcare providers, and its role in building a modern, omnichannel care delivery system.”
The new tools, which can be accessed at the Disparities Advisory Group Toolkit, include:
· A Digital Infrastructure Disparities Score and Map, which uses a new composite measure designed to score a community’s digital infrastructure on a scale of 1-100.
· An Economic and Social Value-Added Calculator, which is designed to scope the cost of telehealth-based clinical or social interventions, including estimates for the total value of an intervention created in favor of payers, providers, government, and business.
· A toolkit summarizing all resources the group has released to date.
According to Kristi Henderson, DNP, CEO of Confluent Health, chair of the ATA Board of Directors, and co-chair of the advisory group, the new tools “build on a framework and advance our efforts to ensure everyone is able to access needed care, recognizing that telehealth is a critical component and a modality for accessing care.”
She added, “The work of our advisory group focuses on creating the infrastructures and tools to allow the industry – including healthcare providers, payers and policymakers – to appropriately assess the required components in eliminating disparities, and to understand where virtual care services can help to improve the health of our citizens and the requisite investment. These tools also look beyond the traditional return on investment framework to a broader notion of economic and social value-added. The advisory group believes the economic burden of inaction should be enough to galvanize all stakeholders towards leveraging the tools necessary to eliminate inequities in care.”
