Telehealth: an opportunity to expand health care in rural communities

We have an opportunity to expand access to health care for Americans with the help of technology.

Senators Brian Schatz, Lisa Murkowski, and I have introduced a bipartisan bill to increase access to health care services in rural areas by investing in telehealth. This legislation would expand the use of technology-based education models – known as Project ECHO – that connect specialists with other health care professionals through the use of technology.

Specifically, the bill would create a program to provide grants and technical assistance to further develop and evaluate the ECHO model and other similar models. The grants would be used for:

• Equipment to support the use and expansion of the models, including for the secure exchange of electronic health information;

• Support for health care providers that provide services under these models;

• Instructional programming and training; and

• Information collection and evaluation activities to study the impact of such models.

Read more about the bill here >>

This is about connecting rural and underserved areas in Virginia and across the nation with specialty care so we can better help those with substance use disorders, chronic diseases, and other complex health care conditions.