USDA Visits, Blogs About Minnesota Outpatient Telepharmacy

The Daily Globe out of Worthington, Minn. writes about the USDA's state director of Rural Development, Colleen Landkammer visiting the Adrian telepharmacy with Senator's Al Franken's representative to congratulate the community and talk up telepharmacy's benefits for rural communities:

Sterling Drug pharmacist Bryan Hagen (right) explains new telepharmacy procedures to (from left) Rep. Tim Walz staff member Matthew Wohlman, USDA Rural Development director Colleen Landkammer and Sen. Al Franken representative Nate Arch during a presentation of a rual business enterprise grant Tuesday afternoon in Adrian.

Hagen said the telepharmacy project has worked well thus far.
“We understand the importance of healthcare access in rural Minnesota,” he said, adding that the telepharmacy is “just what we need” to keep service in small, rural communities. Since the Sterling Drug Telepharmacy debuted, Hagen said he has received calls from other communities interested in the concept, from Fulda to Winnebago.

The USDA also subsequently blogged about it, saying:

“The telepharmacy was a unique and cost-effective way for Adrian to provide access to the services of a local pharmacy,” said Colleen Landkamer, USDA Rural Development State Director. “City officials recognized the need for a local pharmacy to remain in town and took immediate actions to make it happen.”
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“Sterling Drug is happy to be able to bring back pharmacy services into Adrian,” said Bryan Hagen, a pharmacist at Sterling Drug in Worthington. “The telepharmacy model is a great way to keep healthcare in smaller communities where accesses to those services are important to the communities.”

New Nationwide Grants Provide for Telepharmacy Service in Rural Hospitals

First up, the FCC gave out $145 million in grant money to rural health consortiums in support of upgrading their networks for things like telehealth and just general day-to-day operations. All in all, the grants affect more than 2000 rural hospitals around the US. The press release, Rural Telemedicine Program Funds 16 More Broadband Telehealth Networks, states at least one health network will use the cash explicitly for a telepharmacy system between 12 hospitals:

Pennsylvania Mountains Healthcare Alliance ($4.49 M) – A new broadband network of approximately 12 hospitals in rural western Pennsylvania will provide a variety of telehealth services, specialty care, and telepharmacy in 18 counties. The network will provide a minimum of 10 Mbps service and connect with Internet2. The project previously merged with the Juniata Valley Network project, a network in the rural region of the Appalachian Mountains that will connect approximately 79 health care facilities to enable telemedicine and school wellness programs, and will connect to Internet2 at speeds ranging from 7 to 100 Mbps.

Additionally, this "Flex Update" from the University of North Dakota's Center for Rural Health has a section called Impacts of the 2009-2010 SHIP Grant Awards where they detail how Small Rural Hospital Improvement Program grants from the federal Office of Rural Health Policy were spent at Critical Access Hospitals around the state. North Dakota CAHs received a total of $271,250, of which, 69% were purchases for computers, software, servers and the like. Last years grants allowed CAHs to implement Electronic Medical Records. Some of this money will undoubtedly go to telepharmacy projects.

Michigan Health Clinic Receives Rural Development Grant for Remote Pharmacists

Baldwin Family Health Care, which operates a number of family medical clinics in Michigan, is another recipient of the 2009 Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grants from the US Department of Agriculture:

The DLT project connects the applicant with remote pharmacists through tele-pharmacy. Off-site pharmacists will provide prescription dispensing and patient consultation to patients at Baldwin.

The total amount awarded was $52,400. With $13,875 in additional funding, the total project cost is $66,275, according to the USDA's DLT reports (or original PDF) recently released.

Missouri Hospital District receives USDA telepharmacy grant

The Scotland County Memorial Hospital District, serving Scotland and Schuyler Counties (Memphis area) in northeast Missouri received a $62,622 grant from the US Department of Agriculture, as 1 of 4 Missouri grant recipients from this year's USDA Distance Learning and Telemedicine Program:

This project will connect a hospital, two clinic and a phamacy. The primary purpose is telepharmacy. There will also be upgrades to the existing video-conferencing system which supports remote consultation.

Read the full report here (or Original PDF).

South Dakota Hospital gets Huge Telepharmacy Equipment Grant

From the Rapid City Journal out of Rapid City, SD, comes this news:

Regional Health of Rapid City will receive a $386,549 federal grant to buy videoconferencing devices to link 15 sites, including rural hospitals as well as clinics, with regional medical resources at three sites in Rapid City. The grant was one of three Distance Learning and Telemedicine grants awarded in South Dakota last week by U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development.

Among the goals of the Regional Health project are specialty consultation, tele-dialysis and tele-pharmacy, as well as continuing medical education for providers, according to a Rural Development news release.

Pennsylvania Hospitals receive technology grant, hope to implement telepharmacy

The Pennsylvania Mountains Healthcare Resource Development (PMHRD) received a grant from Highmark, reports the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review in a pair of nearly identical articles. Dianne Emminger, VP of IS for ACMH Hospital commented on what they intend to use the grant for:

The funding will be used to purchase equipment and software, Emminger said.

ACMH Hospital will partner with the other hospitals and care centers to provide residents those services, which are in short supply in rural communities, Emminger said.

Emminger gave some examples of how the technology could be used.

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Another would be tele-pharmacy where remote pharmacists would enter orders into the systems of hospitals that do not have 24-7 pharmacist

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"The specific projects are still being evaluated for feasibility," Emminger said.

The district of hospitals already has a fiber optic network in place from a grant they received in 2008, so the infrastructure is already in place.

More info on Adrian's telepharmacy grant

As reported here a while back, the City of Adrian, MN received partial funding for its telepharmacy project, which restored pharmacy services to the area, in the form of a grant from the Blandin Foundation. The Nobles County Review fills us in again:

The Blandin Foundation notified the city of Adrian on March 13, 2009 that Adrian had been selected for the $50,000 grant through the Sterling Drug, Inc. telepharmacy project. The city received the funds from the Blandin Foundation and forwarded the funds to Sterling Drug, Inc. for the purchase of the telepharmacy equipment.

It is good to know that grants are available for hi-tech medical projects such as retail telepharmacies. If you are having trouble initiating or restoring pharmacy services to your area, you might borrow from Kevin Norskog's example and research available grants.

North Dakota Company Recieves Federal Grant for Telepharmacy Research

The United States Department of Agriculture awarded a company involved in starting the North Dakota Telepharmacy Project $80,000 in grant money to research Telepharmacy, reports the Storm Center Blog out of North Dakota:

Evidence shows MTM reduces the use of unnecessary physician and hospital services by reducing adverse health events and in the end total health costs. Research under this grant will be conducted with pharmacies across North Dakota to determine a model for the delivery of MTM services to remote pharmacies.

The results of the research will be used to expand the Telepharmacy Project there.

Lawmakers pass drug vending bill

by The garden Island

Posted: Sunday, May 04, 2008 - 12:17:25 am HST

The state Legislature on Tuesday unanimously passed a controversial bill that will allow pharmacists to use remote dispensing machines to help low income residents in rural areas improve their access to prescription drugs.

Senate Bill 2459 evolved through a mixed batch of criticism, including pages of testimony from several Kaua‘i pharmacists.

“It was contentious at times,” state Sen. Gary Hooser, D-Kaua‘i, said Friday. “There was a lot of misunderstanding about the intent of the legislation, but I’m confident that we’ve provided a good compromise.”

Kalaheo Pharmacy Manager Catherine Shimabukuro in late March testified that the bill fails to meet the guidelines of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy.

“It is clear to me that the intention of the Legislature is to provide prescription care to those who are without insurance,” she says. “This is a noble goal but misguided in its approach to a solution. There are many other avenues that can address this need and all are viable and doable without rewriting the laws that govern the practice of pharmacy.”

Among her arguments, Shimabukuro says there is ample access to pharmacies — negating the need to have remote dispensing machines.

There are some 227 permitted pharmacies in the state, which has a population of nearly 1.3 million residents, according to the state pharmacy board.

State Rep. Roland Sagum, D-16th District, said access means more than physical locations.

“The pricing of these subscription drugs is much cheaper than they can get at a pharmacy,” he said. “It’s for our people who are poor and the indigent.”

The bill, which sunsets in five years, will allow Ho‘ola Lahui Hawai‘i to resume the telepharmacy service that ended two years after it started in October 2005.

Ho‘ola Lahui, a federally qualified health center and Native Hawaiian health care system with offices in Lihu‘e, provides drugs to patients at Kaua‘i Veterans Memorial Hospital in Waimea and Samuel Mahelona Memorial Hospital in Kapa‘a.

“This is especially important for uninsured patients who would not otherwise obtain the drugs they need to improve their immediate health,” Ho‘ola Lahui Board Director Grace Kamai says in her testimony. “HLH provides these medications at a reduced cost to those who otherwise would not be able to afford these medications. The technology allows HLH to reduce costs further by having a central pharmacy location ... dispense acute medication at each clinic.”

Ho‘ola Lahui’s remote dispensing pharmacies were stopped in April 2007 after the state Board of Pharmacy clarified the rules that a pharmacist must be on-site to dispense medications from the machines, Kamai said.

This negated the need for the technology, increased the costs to dispense the necessary medications and decreased patient access to the drugs, according to David Peters, Ho‘ola Lahui chief executive.

Brian Carter, the pharmacist in charge at Lihu‘e Professional Pharmacy, questioned the health center’s motives.

“Ho‘ola Lahui has received money from the federal government to provide aid to the poor and needy people of Hawai‘i,” he said. “What Ho‘ola is doing is using the money that they have received, in good faith, to profit for themselves and put the pharmacies that have served this community for the past 50 years out of business.”

There are 10 independent pharmacies and seven chain retail pharmacies serving Kaua‘i by Carter’s count.

The state pharmacy board chair, Dr. Elwin Goo, testified in favor of the bill with amendments to track the remote dispensing pharmacies.

“The board supports the practice of remote dispensing and believes it is a technology that should be afforded to all pharmacies so that all residents of this state can be afforded easier access to prescription medications to meet their health care needs,” he says. “The board understands and sympathizes with the concerns of the legislature of the financial impact on the small independent pharmacies; however, this bill is not about financial gain or the prosperity of a business, but of the safe dispensing of prescription medications.”

Sagum said the bill is not meant to damage the business of established pharmacies.

“With our economy changing, our needy are getting bigger,” he said. “Many are having a hard time even buying groceries. We want to help them get through this transition time.”

Hooser said community health centers can dispense to very low-income people certain prescription drugs at the cheapest rate available to anyone.

Offering a hypothetical scenario, he said a patient can go to the health center where a doctor will prescribe medication and then have it filled at a remote pharmacy machine.

“It’s not like a vending machine at a shopping mall,” Hooser said. “It’s very controlled. Only certain medications are allowed to be dispensed and an off-site pharmacist does the record keeping.”

The patient will also be in contact with a technician via two-way sound and video monitoring devices, he added.

For more information, visit www.capitol.hawaii.gov.

Source

There's a new Telepharmacy grant available...

To non-profits. Summary, full details.