ATA, Hims & Hers, Others Create Telehealth Equity Coalition
Adoption of and access to telehealth-based care delivery surged during the pandemic, but that doesn’t mean all communities had the same opportunities to receive virtual care. The American Telemedicine Association (ATA), telehealth platform Hims & Hers, and the National Health IT Collaborative for the Underserved are launching the Telehealth Equity Coalition (TEC), which officials say is a data-driven project to review public data on telehealth adoption in communities across the country.
Health equity and ensuring millions of underserved Americans gain access to quality healthcare is a core public policy objective for the ATA, the association’s leaders noted in a press release statement. The official announcement was made at this week’s ATA EDGE Policy Conference.
The TEC was formed to improve access to quality and affordable healthcare by increasing adoption of telehealth, especially among those who have been left out or left behind. Together with nonprofit, academic, and industry partners, “TEC will offer a unique voice to optimize equitable telehealth delivery and utilization,” officials stated.
While Americans over 65 years old represent about one-sixth of the U.S. population and are most likely to need chronic disease management, data from the Pew Research Center reveals that only about half of patients in this age cohort own a smartphone and less than 60 percent have broadband access.
"The pandemic has demonstrated the unique benefits of telehealth to provide high quality care while keeping patients and healthcare providers safe, yet this same essential service has laid bare existing inequities in the broader healthcare ecosystem. With the power of many organizations that share the same vision, we are looking forward to working alongside the ATA and other partners to focus on equity and expand access to safe, high quality telehealth care for all," said April Mims, vice president of policy, Hims & Hers.
“It is imperative that we take this unprecedented opportunity exposed by the public health emergency to permanently break down the barriers of health equities for vulnerable and rural populations and ensure no one, anywhere, is left behind,” added Ann Mond Johnson, CEO, the ATA. “Our ATA Policy Principles include expanding access for underserved and at-risk populations as a core objective of our work. We are looking forward to advancing the important work of TEC and exploring how technology and personal health can lead the way to health equity.”
The National Health IT Collaborative for the Underserved (NHIT) will offer members of this coalition access to its Data Fusion Center, a project that brings together experts from industry, academia, and communities to assess and measure important indicators of access and use of telehealth. Other founding members of TEC include Adaptation Health, BlackDoctor.org, Foley & Lardner, Grapevine Health, Howard University Department of Community & Family Medicine, Health Innovation Alliance, National Digital Inclusion Alliance, the National MS Society, and TechNet.
“So much of our recent focus has been on leveraging telehealth in response to the public health emergency, and rightly so. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that telehealth is not just a ‘COVID solution’ but it is a critical tool in healthcare delivery,” added Joseph C. Kvedar, M.D., chair of the ATA Board; professor of dermatology, Harvard Medical School; senior advisor, virtual care, Mass General Brigham; and Editor, npj Digital Medicine.
“Most provider organizations are now doing 15 percent to 25 percent of their ambulatory activity via telehealth, creating an appropriate balance of in-person and virtual care. It is clearly time to make telehealth a legitimate care delivery channel for the long haul by tackling policy, reimbursement, and implementation challenges, and resolving health disparities that have long plagued our healthcare system,” he said.
