Evidence-Based Tele-Emergency Network Grant Program

The summary for the Evidence-Based Tele-Emergency Network Grant Program grant is detailed below. This summary states who is eligible for the grant, how much grant money will be awarded, current and past deadlines, Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) numbers, and a sampling of similar government grants. Verify the accuracy of the data FederalGrants.com provides by visiting the webpage noted in the Link to Full Announcement section or by contacting the appropriate person listed as the Grant Announcement Contact. If any section is incomplete, please visit the website for the Health Resources Services Administration, which is the U.S. government agency offering this grant.

Evidence-Based Tele-Emergency Network Grant Program: This announcement solicits applications for the Evidence-Based Tele-Emergency Network Grant Program (EB TNGP).  The EB TNGP is intended to support implementation and evaluation of broad telehealth networks to deliver 24-hour Emergency Department (ED) consultation services via telehealth to rural providers without emergency care specialists.  In this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), Tele-Emergency is defined as an immediate, synchronous, interactive audio/video connection between an ED specialist at the distant site and general practitioners at the originating site used to support delivery of emergency care.  These services may include assessment of patients upon admission to the ED, interpretation of patient symptoms and clinical tests or data, supervision of providers administering treatment or pharmaceuticals, or coordination of patient transfer out of the local ED.  While the EB TNGP emphasizes expanding access to needed services for rural patients, it primarily seeks through systematic data collection and analysis to establish an evidence-base assessing the effectiveness of Tele-Emergency care for patients, providers, and payers.  The primary purpose of the EB TNGP is to support a range of Tele-Emergency care programs that will allow for the analysis of a significant volume of patient encounters to allow for detailed study and analysis of patient outcomes in rural areas.  The goal is for each EB TNGP grantee under this FOA to analyze the provision of Tele-Emergency services under common metrics and protocols that will allow for a multi-site analysis of the effectiveness of those services.  Each of the grantees will participate in a broad-scale analysis and evaluation of the program coordinated by the ORHP as well as individual grantee analysis and evaluation.  It is expected that each of the grantees and the ORHP will publish findings in peer-reviewed academic journals under common metrics and outcome analysis that will be established shortly after the funds are awarded.  Of particular interest is analyzing outcomes associated with Medicare beneficiaries.  These studies and evaluations will involve as large of a patient population as possible and will compare to other populations not receiving this care as scientifically appropriate.  Although the desire for a large study population may prevent control populations being established at each site, robust quantitative and qualitative evaluation is expected at the grantee and cohort levels across a relevant set of metrics.  These analyses and evaluations should be similar in quality to those published in leading peer-reviewed journals and should study the clinical benefit of the Tele-Emergency studies while noting costs added or saved and the methodology used to establish and administer the services.  Applicants must provide a thorough description of their technical expertise and experience in taking part in broad quantitative evaluations and also describe how their staffing plan will contribute to the larger program evaluation.  Among the potential metrics to assess clinical benefit provided by Tele-Emergency services likely to be  included in the ORHP program evaluation , but are not limited to, are:  improved ability to diagnose a medical condition; increased treatment options; reduced rate of patient complications, morbidity, and mortality; decreased rate of subsequent diagnostic or therapeutic interventions; decreased number of transfers or future physician and office visits; decreased hospital length of stay; faster resolution of the disease process treatment; decreased pain, bleeding, or other quantifiable symptoms; reduced recovery time; saved patient and family travel time; increased patient and provider satisfaction; and increased cost efficiency.  Final metrics will be developed by ORHP in consultation with grantees and other key informants. That broader program evaluation will be led by ORHP in coordination with each awardee and is expected to focus on the following areas: impact on quality of care; appropriateness of use of the technology; changes in patient access; changes in clinical process and outcomes; and impact on the cost of service delivery in terms of efficiency and effectiveness of care.