CCHP conducts objective policy analysis and research, to identify and promote practice pattern, policy, regulatory, and statutory change that will maximize the effectiveness of telehealth in California.
Telehealth technologies are tools to help achieve health care's "triple aim" of improved patient outcomes and access to care, and cost savings to the health care system.
CCHP develops non-partisan policy recommendations that further these goals.
In 2012, CCHP became the federally designated National Telehealth Policy Resource Center, tasked with providing technical assistance in telehealth policy to 12 Regional Telehealth Resource Centers nationwide and serving as a national resource on telehealth policy issues.
Recent CCHP projects include:
- State Telehealth Laws and Reimbursement Policies - A scan of telehealth laws and Medicaid regulations in the 50 states and District of Columbia;
- Specialty Care Safety Net Initiative (SCSNI) - a 2012 project which connected 43 safety net clinics across California with medical specialists at the five University of Californai Schools of Medicine. the SCSNI served as a laboratory to identify teh means of establishing permanent relationships between UC medical schools and California's safety net providers.
- Telehealth Advancement Act - This new statute, AB 415, updates California telehealth law and removes policy barriers to telehealth use. The bill's author and sponsor, in drafting this legislation, drew from CCHP's Telehealth Model Statute report. CCHP provided non-partisan technical support on the bill.
- California Telehealth Model Statute - CCHP issued a model statute report that recommends modernizing state telemedicine and workforce laws, to encourage more robust adoption of telehealth technologies;
- Tele-Dermatology in Medi-Cal - This project is examined California’s tele-dermatology workforce, with a focus on the 2007 Medi-Cal tele-dermatology reimbursement law, gauge its impact in boosting use of these technologies;
- Tele-ICU California Assessment Project - NEHI, a national health policy institute, conducted a research project in collaboration with CCHP to examine barriers to use of tele-ICUs, and to identify regions of California that would benefit from expansion of tele-ICUs.
- Connecting California: The Impact of the Stimulus Package on Telehealth and Broadband Expansion - a 2009 issue brief that describes broadband and telehealth provisions in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and makes recommendations on how California could take maximum advantage of ARRA funding opportunities.