Telehealth’s Impact on the COVID-19 Response

Investigators with the Supporting Pediatric Research on Outcomes and Utilization of Telehealth (SPROUT) NCATS collaborative U01 hosted a nationwide call (March 12, 2020) in collaboration with the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Telehealth to discuss how both adult and pediatric telehealth is being used in response to COVID-19 nationally.

Nine leading healthcare institutions presented on their approach to leveraging telehealth technology for the pandemic, followed by discussion of evaluation frameworks and potential multicenter research efforts. Virtual urgent care for triage, inpatient telehealth to prevent exposures to staff, and the use of telehealth to substitute for previously scheduled in-person visits were key themes discussed during the call. “This is a critical moment in history for the evolution of telehealth, and our responsibility at SPROUT is to steer that evolution toward the development of clinically impactful services that truly transform our system of care.”

To address the question of “the impact of telehealth on COVID-19 response,” the SPROUT Metrics Topic Working Group (TWG) created a COVID-19 Measurement Framework. This framework and a recorded transcript of the call may be accessed by visiting the SPROUT network webpage.

About SPROUT

SPROUT is a multicentered collaborative research network dedicated to supporting institutions around the country in establishing an evidence base for telehealth services. The SPROUT-CTSA Collaborative Telehealth Research Network is funded through a grant (U01TR002626) from the National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) with an academic home at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC).

About the South Carolina Clinical & Translational Research Institute

The South Carolina Clinical and Translational Research (SCTR) Institute is the catalyst for changing the culture of biomedical research, facilitating sharing of resources and expertise, and streamlining research-related processes to bring about large-scale, change in the clinical and translational research efforts in South Carolina. Our vision is to improve health outcomes and quality of life for the population through discoveries translated into evidence-based practice.

About the Medical University of South Carolina Founded in 1824 in Charleston, the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) is the oldest medical school in the South, as well as the state’s only integrated, academic health sciences center with a unique charge to serve the state through education, research and patient care. Each year, MUSC educates and trains more than 3,000 students and 700 residents in six colleges: Dental Medicine, Graduate Studies, Health Professions, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy. The state’s leader in obtaining biomedical research funds, in fiscal year 2018, MUSC set a new high, bringing in more than $276.5 million. For information on academic programs, visit http://musc.edu.

As the clinical health system of the Medical University of South Carolina, MUSC Health is dedicated to delivering the highest quality patient care available, while training generations of competent, compassionate health care providers to serve the people of South Carolina and beyond. Comprising some 1,600 beds, more than 100 outreach sites, the MUSC College of Medicine, the physicians’ practice plan, and nearly 275 telehealth locations, MUSC Health owns and operates eight hospitals situated in Charleston, Chester, Florence, Lancaster and Marion counties. In 2019, for the fifth consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report named MUSC Health the number one hospital in South Carolina. To learn more about clinical patient services, visit http://muschealth.org.

MUSC and its affiliates have collective annual budgets of $3 billion. The more than 17,000 MUSC team members include world-class faculty, physicians, specialty providers and scientists who deliver groundbreaking education, research, technology and patient care.

Organization
Medical University Of South Carolina