Back to Annual Meeting

Back to Annual Meeting

Abstract #147445

• Slides (pdf) or Handout

Lois Ritter, EdD, MS, Walter R. McDonald & Associates, 2720 Gateway Oaks Drive, Suite 250, Sacramento, CA 95833, 916239-4020, lritter@wrma.com and Nuria Ciofalo, PhD, Evaluation, The California Endowment, 1000 North Alameda Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012.

The California Endowment funded a five-year statewide telemedicine program to enhance the delivery of health-care services and educational opportunities to rural regions of the state using technology. The recipient of the funding was responsible for building telemedicine and eHealth capacity and competency among providers, increasing access to specialty care, decreasing the digital divide as it relates to healthcare services, and improving access to quality care for California's rural and underserved populations. Ten grantees throughout the state were funded to deliver telemedicine services. An external evaluation team was hired for a four-year period to assess the telemedicine project. Specifically, they were hired to evaluate the building and sustainability of networks to reduce barriers to health services for rural Californians, build evaluation capacity among the grantees, gather and share data about lessons learned, and make recommendations for improvement. The five areas of the evaluation were network development, technical assistance, education and training services, policy development and systems change, and community assessment. In this presentation we will discuss the lessons learned and recommendations for future planning. An emphasis on policies that moved the telemedicine project forward and ones that were prohibitive to it progressing will be particularly emphasized.

Learning Objectives:

• 1. Discuss at least four strengths of the telemedicine project
• 2. Discuss at least four areas in need of improvement
• 3. Identify at least two policies that enabled the telemedicine project to expand
• 4. Identify at least two policies that had a negative impact on the project from expanding

Keywords: Telemedicine, Health Care Delivery

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No
Any institutionally-contracted trials related to this submission?

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

• Slides (pdf) or Handout