688: Telehealth Needs Assessment, Executive Training in Action

ROBERT JOHNSON: 

This is the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition for Tuesday, June 18, 2024. I'm Robert Johnson. Now, today's news from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

SULEIMA SALGADO: 

The whole purpose is really to understand how state organizations are leveraging telehealth and technology for clinical care delivery.

JOHNSON: 

ASTHO Consultant, Suleima Salgado, offers details of a new needs assessment focused on telehealth. Among the takeaways, there's more than one way to deliver telemedicine,

SALGADO: 

Whether you're looking at funding, whether you're looking at partnerships and collaborations, and you're looking at the types of services you're using, and even the organizational structure that state agencies and health departments are leveraging and organizations to build their telehealth programs.

JOHNSON: 

Salgado says there's also a need for technical assistance.

SALGADO: 

I need help understanding state policies, I need to know what I can and can't build for I need to understand better what's available in my state versus other states. If this data is so successful, what are they doing differently and what resources do they have that we don't have? And how can we implement those trends within our organization?

JOHNSON: 

Even if agencies have questions, Salgado says they should give it a try.

SULEIMA SALGADO: 

Don't be fearful, just try telehealth and telemedicine. Even if you're starting small, smallest better than nothing.

JOHNSON: 

The new ASTHO needs assessment is online. There's a link in the show notes.

We know that graduates have ASTHO's Diverse Executives Leading in Public Health program use their newly acquired skills to impact their work in agencies across the states and territories. Dr. Frederick Echols is one of those former students. He applied his executive presence training to help facilitate a conversation on the sidelines of the World Health Assembly.

FREDRICK ECHOLS: 

Talking about how we can utilize surgical access and surgical healthcare ecosystem to address issues related to non communicable diseases in a way that supports the achievement of the World Health Organization's sustainable development goals.

JOHNSON: 

Echols also leveraged other skills to bring private and public sector interests together to discuss how to slow transmission of the COVID-19 virus.

ECHOLS: 

By utilizing this the community engagement tools that I obtained through the DELPH program, I was able to do that successfully in the St. Louis area to the point where the city of St. Louis had the lowest mortality rate across the St. Louis region.

JOHNSON: 

Echols writes about his experience in a new ASTHO blog article now online, you also can get more information about ASTHO's development programs. The links to the article and the web page are in the show notes.

Finally, this morning, build additional capacity to address adverse childhood experiences with ideas provided in a new ASTHO resource. Learn more by clicking the link in the show notes.

Before we go a reminder also to follow this newscast on your podcast player and connect with ASTHO on social media. We are on LinkedIn, Facebook, and X. That'll do it for today. We're off tomorrow for the Juneteenth holiday and opportunity to reflect on the root causes of health inequity and commit to a movement that leads to justice.

Join us again Thursday morning for more ASTHO news and information. I'm Robert Johnson. You're listening to the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition. Have a great day.