7:15am – 8:00am
Conference Registration & Networking Breakfast 

8:00am – 8:15am
Chairperson’s Opening Remarks 

8:15am – 9:00am
The Future of Telehealth
This session will explore future predications for telehealth. Topics to be discussed will include:

• Investments being made in the usability of telehealth solutions and seamless technologies
• Telehealth for chronic disease management
• Government funding and regulation for telehealth
• Innovators in the digital health arena

Cheryl Hiddleson MSN, RN, FCCM, CENP, CCRN
EHC Director eICU Operations
Adjunct Faculty Biomedical Informatics
Emory University School of Medicine 

9:00am – 9:45am
Hospitals without Walls: The Future of Healthcare
In the wake of the pandemic, doctors and designers are radically adapting their thinking about what a hospital can be and what it should deliver. The healthcare industry as we know it is undergoing a monumental transformation as providers increasingly connect with patients outside of a hospital’s four walls to enable more care and healing at home. Telehealth is quickly becoming a new best practice in the industry and accepted way to enhance the patient experience and improve patient outcomes, all while potentially lowering the cost of care. Rather than serving as hubs of all care, hospitals are fast becoming centers of excellence for specialized care or highly acute conditions, and health care systems are turning to hospital-at-home models of care for other services traditionally delivered in person. With these shifts, telehealth becomes the patient’s first point of access for urgent care, consultations with a specialist, self-care education, chronic care management, and more. While COVID-19 was certainly a catalyst for this transition, telehealth utilization has stabilized at levels higher than before the pandemic – a clear sign that it is here to stay. This session will explore hospital-at-home models.

Michael J. Maniaci, M.D.
Enterprise Medical Director of Virtual Care
Mayo Clinic 

9:45am – 10:15am
Networking & Refreshments Break

10:15am – 11:00am
Why Telehealth is so Critical for Marginalized Patient Populations
With so many of the nation’s underserved patients using telehealth services, practitioners and medical organizations must work to understand what these patients need in order to improve the quality of care. The necessity of telehealth has been a hot-button topic in healthcare discussions since the care modality went mainstream during the pandemic. This session will explore bringing telemedicine to the nation’s underserved, as well as other related social determinants of health and health equity issues.

Cheryl Powell, MPP
Principal Researcher
Mathematica-MPR 

11:00am – 11:45am
Barriers to Telemedicine and How to Overcome Them
Telemedicine originally started to provide healthcare to underserved patients who don’t have access to primary care because of their location, usually in rural areas. Although remote healthcare delivery has been around for years, its growth and expansion were slow and almost immovable as patients preferred face-to-face consultations. However, recent events caused the rapid implementation of telehealth in all areas, from major cities to rural areas, and it proved efficient in providing quality care while minimizing physical interactions. Despite the many benefits of telemedicine amid a public health emergency, some barriers hinder the successful adoption and implementation of telehealth among healthcare providers and organizations. The good news is you can overcome telemedicine barriers by learning about them and having an effective strategy. This session will explore telemedicine concerns to consider and effective strategies for overcoming them.

Yannis M. Paulus, M.D., F.A.C.S.
Helmut F. Stern Career Development Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences
Associate Professor, Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences
Associate Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering
Medical Director, Grand Blanc ACU
Kellogg Eye Center
University of Michigan

11:45am – 12:30pm
How Telehealth Can Improve Patient Outcomes
It’s a safe bet that every healthcare provider wants to know how to improve patient care while improving patient outcomes. Today, thanks largely to the COVID-19 pandemic, providers have been using a relatively new digital patient engagement tool to do that: telehealth, also called telemedicine, eHealth and virtual healthcare. While telehealth has been used for decades in clinical settings, it really caught fire during the pandemic. Social distancing, quarantines and the public’s fear of exposure led to increased interest in and demand for telehealth services among consumers. Patients are often more satisfied with telehealth/virtual care visits than with in-person appointments. Providers are also looking to introduce patient telehealth because of the many advantages it offers. These include increased revenue, greater scheduling flexibility, lower costs, and better work/life balance. But these considerations matter only if they result in improved patient outcomes that produce healthy and happy patients. Fortunately, that’s exactly what telehealth can achieve. This session will explore how telehealth can improve patient outcomes.

Benjamin W. Strong, MD
Chief Medical Officer, Virtual Radiologic
vRad 

12:30pm – 1:30pm
Luncheon 

1:30pm – 2:15pm
The Impact of Telehealth on Care Coordination
Evidence has identified that telehealth can be used across the interdisciplinary team to enable people to navigate the health system and access routine care during an infectious outbreak. The regular use of telehealth may lead to more effective and sustainable models of care. However, the benefits and limitations of this model of service delivery needs to be carefully considered and appropriate training and education provided for all healthcare professionals and patients. This session will examine the impact of telehealth on care continuity.

Farrukh N Jafri, MD MS-HPEd, FACEP
Medical Director WPH Cares
White Plains Hospital 

2:15pm – 3:15pm
Panel: How Telehealth Improves the Patient Experience
Healthcare professionals have long sought and struggled to assess and improve healthcare quality. An integral component of healthcare quality, and the key to patient-centeredness, is improving the patient experience, alongside effectiveness and patient safety — a goal every medical practice aspires to accomplish. How? Through telehealth. Regardless of how different states and medical boards define or limit telehealth, it has fundamental characteristics to satisfy and improve the patient experience. This session will explore essential points on how implementing telehealth in your practice improves the patient experience. 

Scott Flinn, MD
Regional Medical Director
Blue Shield of California 

Julie A. Knop
Director, Child Abuse Training Unit
Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan 

3:15pm – 3:45pm
Networking & Refreshments Break 

3:45pm – 4:30pm
Moving Care into the Home
One trend that has garnered considerable momentum from the pandemic involves moving care traditionally done in clinics and hospitals into patients’ homes. Innovations include telehealth appointments, acute hospital at home, hospice and palliative care at home, in-home health evaluations for Medicare Advantage, and remote patient monitoring for chronic conditions such as heart failure. Health systems across the country are investing in the home as an alternative to hospitals and skilled nursing facilities. This session will explore how this shift will affect the quality and costs of care, and how to adapt policy and payment to support this new model of care.

Rhonda Wiering, MSN, RN, NHA
Vice President, Clinical Growth and Innovation
Avera@Home 

4:30pm – 5:15pm
Telehealth As A Lifeline For The Top 5 Rural Hospital Challenges
Many rural hospitals in the U.S. have closed over the last decade and many more are at risk.  Among the top 5 challenges for rural hospitals and their communities are access (while acting as a safety net), workforce shortages, transportation, wages, and housing.  In this talk, Dr. Curtis will talk about not simply how telehealth can be an ongoing aspect of healthcare delivery for rural hospitals, but how it can actually act as the lifeline for their survival…. 

Kevin M. Curtis, MD, MS
Medical Director, Connected Care and Center for Telehealth
Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine
Dartmouth Health

5:15pm – 6:00pm
Interventions for the Delivery of Mental Health Care Using Mobile Technologies
The pandemic has shifted mental healthcare delivery to telehealth platforms, videoconferencing, and other mobile communications. These tools offer the possibility of expanding the reach and accessibility of mental healthcare. As healthcare providers continue to embrace the role that technology can play in broadening access to care, the implementation of mental healthcare telehealth solutions must be carefully considered to maximize their effectiveness and accessibility. This session will explore these interventions for the delivery of mental healthcare, as well as considerations for ensuring equity in access to mental health interventions among diverse populations.

Martha Zimmermann, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
UMass Chan Medical School 

6:00pm
End of Day One

7:15am – 8:00am
Networking Breakfast 

8:00am – 8:15am
Chairperson’s Recap

8:15am – 9:00am
Expanding Patient Access to Care No Matter Where They May Be
Hospitals, health systems, providers and patients have seen the benefits and potential for telehealth to increase access and transform care delivery. And as the pandemic made clear, there is no doubt that the ability of patients — especially people living in rural or underserved areas — to consult and connect virtually with caregivers without the necessity of in-person visits has been a revolutionary development in health care delivery. It also showed just how valuable telehealth is to ensuring people have access to the care they need, its use goes far beyond navigating public health emergencies. This session will explore how telehealth is helping people in every part of the country get the care they need.

Saurabh Chandra, MD, PhD
Chief Telehealth Officer
University of Mississippi Medical Center 

9:00am – 9:45am
How Telehealth Enhances Patient Engagement
Telehealth enables patients to be more engaged with their healthcare providers as it provides them easier access and greater convenience to care. Healthcare providers from all over the world have acknowledged the capabilities of telehealth as it continues to expand across the healthcare industry and create a significant impact on patient engagement. Telehealth programs empower patients to be more engaged with their care, keep track of their medical records, and promote the decision-making processes for their treatment outcomes and overall wellness. Although telehealth is the practice of delivering healthcare services remotely, patients do not feel distant from their healthcare providers as telecommunication technology plays a crucial role in establishing patient engagement using video conferences, SMS, and remote patient monitoring (RPM).

This session will explore how telehealth enhances patient engagement, which is vital in medical practice today as more patients want remote healthcare services.

Amber Humphrey
Senior Director, Telehealth
Vanderbilt University Medical Center 

9:45am – 10:15am
Networking & Refreshments Break 

10:15am – 11:00am
Healthcare Trends, Health Equity and the Future of Healthcare
Trends like telemedicine, IoT devices, and virtual reality surgical training continue to attract massive investment, helping the industry improve health equity worldwide. Put simply, health equity is all about making healthcare more accessible and affordable for everyone — and telehealth is the driving forces behind health equity. Of course, there are many challenges on the road to achieving this goal, with stakeholders at all levels of government involved and a myriad of social determinants of how we collect, analyze and share health data. This session will explore these trends with real momentum and why they matter to health equity and the future of healthcare. 

 

Mary Reich Cooper MD JD
Program Director, Healthcare Quality and Safety and Operational Excellence
Associate Professor, Population Health
Jefferson College of Population Health
Thomas Jefferson University 

11:00am – 11:45am
TBD 

Sherene Schlegel, RN, BSN, FAHA
Chief Operating Officer/Chief Nursing Officer, Virtual Care and Digital Health
Providence Health 

11:45am – 12:30pm
Managing Chronic Conditions through Telehealth
Telehealth treatment options are vast, but they vary depending on the condition and the patient’s needs and abilities. More than half of Americans have been diagnosed with at least one chronic health condition. Chronic diseases are the leading cause of death and disability and are also responsible for driving the cost of healthcare. This session will explore the severity and even the occurrence of chronic health conditions can often be mitigated by telehealth care services, along with the many common chronic conditions that can be treated and managed, in part, through telehealth.

Nora Cox
Chief Executive Officer
Texas e-Health Alliance 

12:30pm
Conference Concludes

Workshop: The Future of AI in Telemedicine

The future of AI in telemedicine is very promising. AI has the potential to revolutionize telemedicine by making it more accessible, efficient, and effective. This session will dive into ways that AI is being used in telemedicine today and how it could be used in the future