$9M Grants to Opioid Telemedicine Programs

Oklahoma, Colorado and Pennsylvania will use Project ECHO to train rural doctors and improve opioid treatment.

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POLITICO MORNING E-HEALTH

By David Pittman

The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services announced at this weekend’s National Governors Association meeting $9 million in grants to improve opioid-addiction treatment in primary care practices. Each of the recipients in Oklahoma, Colorado and Pennsylvania will use Project ECHO, the University of New Mexico pioneered effort to provide urban specialist to train rural primary care doctors, or some other form of teleconsultation to improve opioid-addiction treatment.

Project ECHO was developed to help rural New Mexican providers effectively treat and monitor Hepatitis C in a state with few specialists, but the principles have been applied to other diseases. The grant money announced at the NGA meeting will apply Project ECHO to 28 counties in Oklahoma, 24 in Colorado and 23 rural Pennsylvania counties to extend opioid-abuse training there. More on the grants is here.

Read the original post on Politico’s Morning E-health blog from July 18, 2016.

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