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September 2022 |
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New “Speak Up At Your Telehealth Visit”
Campaign from The Joint Commission
The Joint Commission has released
Speak Up At Your Telehealth Visit, a new
patient safety campaign designed to educate
healthcare consumers on how to navigate virtual
healthcare as it changes the way patients and
providers can interact.
Telehealth, which
has grown in popularity during the COVID-19
pandemic, has many benefits. It saves travel time
and transportation costs, increases access to
specialists and for second opinions, and can take
place almost anywhere a patient can have a private
conversation.
The Speak Up campaign lists
some healthcare services that may be conducted via
telehealth:
• Therapy or counseling sessions.
• Monitoring chronic conditions with a hybrid
approach – that is, alternating in-person visits
with telehealth evaluations.
• Prenatal care.
• Genetic counseling.
• Following up after an
in-person visit.
• Observation for acute
respiratory viral illnesses.
The Speak Up
campaign includes an informational poster in
English and Spanish, an animated video that
explains the uses and benefits of telehealth, and
a distribution guide that aims to help
organizations determine how to disseminate the
information to patients.
Organizations are
free to reproduce and disseminate
Speak Up At Your Telehealth Visit
materials if they credit The Joint Commission.
Increased Use of Telehealth for
Opioid Use Disorder Services During COVID-19
Pandemic Associated with Reduced Risk of Overdose
The expansion of telehealth services during
the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with
individuals staying in treatment longer and
reducing their risk of medically treated overdose,
according to a new
study.
Published in JAMA Psychiatry,
this study was a collaborative effort led by
researchers at the National Center for Injury
Prevention and Control, a part of the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); the National
Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the
National Institutes of Health (NIH); and the
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
In this national study, researchers analyzed
data among 175,778 Medicare beneficiaries from
September 2018 to February 2021. The analysis
examined the receipt of telehealth services,
medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD), and
experiencing a medically treated overdose among
individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD)
starting a new episode of care prior to the
pandemic compared to those during the pandemic.
Among the key findings from this study:
• Data analyzed from two groups of Medicare
beneficiaries, one group initiating an episode of
OUD-related care before the COVID-19 pandemic and
one initiating care during the COVID-19 pandemic,
and found that those in the COVID-19 pandemic
group were more likely to receive OUD-related
telehealth services compared to the pre-pandemic
group (19.6% compared to 0.6%) and were more
likely to receive MOUD (12.6% compared to 10.8%).
• Among the COVID-19 pandemic group, receipt
of OUD-related telehealth services was associated
with significantly better MOUD treatment retention
and lower risk of medically treated overdose
compared to those not receiving OUD-related
telehealth services, lending support for
permanently implementing access to telehealth
services.
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