110: The number of nurses Blue Carolina is using through its new Health Blue Line to help members facing a serious medical event or chronic condition. Initial calls can last between 30 to 60 minutes, with follow-up calls lasting around 15 minutes. Through an integrated care management program officially launching in January 2020, nurses will refer patients to outpatient services, community resources, and PCPs as needed, including for behavioral health help.
Telehealth Momentum: Despite last week’s study revealing senior dislike for tele-encounters, Intermountain Health System has launched a Kidney Care Center with doctors, nurses, and dietitians providing at-home dialysis and access to treatment through a telehealth platform; while Amazon just created a virtual care clinic for Seattle area employees, their dependents, and some aging relatives meeting criteria.
Walmart University: Perhaps not ready for Big 10 football, but nearly free college courses are available to its workers who want to become pharmacy technicians or opticians, as well as behavioral health for a total out-of-pocket cost of $1 per day. Walmart covers tuition, books, fees, and counseling support and will plug in the new trainees in its own Walmart and Sam’s Club stores. The University of Florida, Southern New Hampshire University, and Purdue University Global will help in training.
Video Game Addiction: My youngest suffers, and my usual approach is to toss the phone in the garbage. The UK has a softer approach: it has opened its first clinic to treat video game disorder, which the World Health Organization will put into its disease catalogue in 2022.
Angama Health: A cloud-based tool leveraging artificial intelligence in helping physicians and their patients get access to medications as a part of Georgia Tech’s Advance Technology Development Center incubator accelerate program. The startup intends to utilize AI expertise and resources to minimize physician and patient access friction to specialty and branded medications in an effort to provide more effective therapy. 92% of physicians reported the prior-authorization process required by health plans is having a negative impact on patients’ clinical outcomes, according to an American Medical Association survey.
Painfully Ineffective: A new report says a common therapy for joint pain may not be as helpful as once believed. Corticosteroid injections are given to reduce inflammation from osteoarthritis, but a recent report found that shots in the hips and knees may accelerate the progression of osteoarthritis, the Arthritis Foundation reports.
Welcome to LA, We Hope You Stay: LA Care Health Plan, a publicly operated Medicaid managed care plan in California, is spending $500,000 to help train 50 Community Health Workers who will, among other things, help implement a state Medicaid program that serves members with certain chronic health and mental health conditions access enhanced care coordination services, including referrals to community and social services like food and housing. Some of the trainees will work for LA Cares, while others will work for community-based care management entities, such as the member’s assigned primary care providers. Training will be offered through Loma Linda University.
Extra Point: 26-year-olds coming out of residency are getting less predictable. Interest in traveling positions that plug in the doctor for 1- to 3-month stints in interesting and oft times ‘vacation-like’ destinations are increasingly popular, despite prior-year demand for security and limited hours in a hospital or academic environment. The initial results, available at the link here, are part of a multiyear study on physicians we started about a decade ago, and they are a window into how to recruit doctors and how to use them.