Leverage telehealth technologies to improve healthcare access and manage the business aspects of telehealth
| AVAILABLE FOR GROUP OR ORGANIZATIONAL OFFERINGS — This program is available as a customized training program for groups or organizations, click here for details. |
- No telehealth experience necessary
- Geared toward professionals and providers from a variety of backgrounds
Telehealth initiatives hold exciting potential to address healthcare access issues in Delaware and beyond, whether from shortfalls in critical healthcare specialties, or in under-served geographic locations. Telehealth also provides innovative ways to meet the demands of an aging population, reduce inappropriate use of emergency departments, prevent hospital readmissions, bring care to the most appropriate setting and more.
UD’s Advanced Telehealth Coordinator Certificate program highlights the benefits and opportunities of telehealth implementations like:
- patient videoconference visits with medical practitioners
- virtual mental health and counseling appointments
- virtual access to specialists in rural and high-need areas
- remote patient monitoring programs
- personalized follow-up programs for patient treatment regimens
- mHealth (mobile health), eICU (electronic intensive care unit) and more
This certificate program provides the foundations of telehealth for participants interested in utilizing telehealth for the delivery of healthcare, including technology evaluation, business and operational considerations, regulations, ethics, privacy and more.
The Advanced Telehealth Coordinator Certificate program is offered in a flexible online format with some scheduled requirements and assignments.
Program details
- Who should enroll in this program
- Program faculty
- Course outline
- Learner outcomes
- Wilmington University Elective Credit
- Prerequisites
- What our students say
Who should participate?
Clinicians, administrators, managers, health care IT and other professionals from a wide variety of health care disciplines including:
- physicians
- physician assistants
- nurse practitioners
- dentists
- pharmacists
- nurses
- psychologists
- counselors
- social workers
- physical therapists
- occupational therapists
- speech therapists
- respiratory therapists
- optometrists
- dietitians/nutritionists and more
Program faculty
Gemma Lowery, MBA, CATC, ACHE, is the Virtual Health Program Manager for the ChristianaCare healthcare system where she has served in a progression of roles for the past 15 years. Her experience prior to this role was as the operations coordinator for the inpatient eICU and Apache data subject matter expert. She participates in Delaware’s telehealth efforts as a steering committee member for the Delaware Telehealth Coalition (DTC). Gemma also serves in an advisory board role with the Mid-Atlantic Telehealth Resource Center (MATRC). Gemma is a University of Delaware alumna as well as an inaugural alumna of the University of Delaware’s Advanced Telehealth Coordinator Certificate program.
Course outline
The Advanced Telehealth Coordinator course begins by providing participants with the foundation needed to understand the benefits and uses of telehealth as well as the role of the telehealth coordinator. As the curriculum advances, participants dive deeper into the knowledge and skills necessary to support the use of telehealth applications within a health care organization. The course culminates in the exploration of telehealth project and program management.
This 15-week course provides a comprehensive program of instruction, exploration, discussion and practice. While examining the practical, technical and business aspects of telehealth, participants will also explore the creative aspects of utilizing technology to deliver health care in order to prepare for the continued growth of telehealth.
Course sessions include:
- Introduction to Telehealth
- eICU and Telehealth Resources
- Funding and Reimbursement
- Policies that Impact Telehealth (Parts 1 and 2)
- Telemental Health and Ethics
- Quality, Outcomes and Data Collection
- Telehealth in the Home and Remote Patient Monitoring
- Starting a Chronic Diseases Telehealth Clinic and Unique Applications
- Operational Considerations (Parts 1 and 2)
- More Successful Uses of Telehealth; Telehealth Program Planning
- Introduction to Telehealth Program Management (Parts 1 and 2)
- The Advanced Telehealth Coordinator: Tying It All Together
Grading policy — To earn the Advanced Telehealth Coordinator Certificate, you must complete all modules with a passing grade (60% or higher) and earn an overall final grade for the certificate of 70% or above.
Course delivery — The Advanced Telehealth Coordinator Certificate program is offered in a flexible online format with some scheduled requirements and assignments. Online course videos and presentations can be accessed by participants on a self-paced basis within the overall course completion timeframe outlined on the class syllabus. Other course activities include online reading assignments, class discussion via online video chat and discussion threads, and online quizzes and written assignments, most with biweekly completion timeframes. Participants complete a final project exploring telehealth implementation to be shared with the class via live video presentation.
Learner outcomes
Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:
- Identify available telehealth technologies and appropriate uses for them
- Explain the benefits of and barriers to implementing telehealth
- Understand the business and financial aspects of telehealth
- Analyze key legislative, regulatory and organizational policies that impact the use of telehealth
- Identify data elements to collect to support quality improvement/quality assurance
- Identify the roles and responsibilities of the telehealth coordinator
- Communicate telehealth concepts to organizational members as well as to health care consumers
- Identify elements of a successful telehealth encounter and quality telepresence
- Develop efficient clinical telehealth workflows
- Identify strategies that support effective telehealth program development
- Draft organizational protocols to support telehealth
- Identify strategies for measuring and communicating program successes and lessons learned
- Consider language, culture and disability in using telehealth technologies
Wilmington University elective credit
The University of Delaware’s Advanced Telehealth Coordinator Online Certificate Program is an approved Lower Level Health Science elective (3 credits) for Wilmington University’s Bachelor of Science degree in Health Sciences. For details, contact Wilmington University at coel@wilmu.edu.
Prerequisites
Basic computer skills are required. There are no academic prerequisites to enroll in this program.
What our students say
- “A window in the future of information technology from the perspective of medicine.”
- “Interesting content with real life application.”
- “I liked how the course added a lot of business elements into the lecture and reading material. I feel that I have a good grasp of knowing what it takes to create and implement a telehealth program.”
- “Available when I had time to get to the assignments. Very encouraging faculty member, went above and beyond when work conflicts required later submission of work. Good blend of assignments – not all tests and not all discussions.”
- “Thoughtful overview of the topic, each module built well on each other.”
- “I liked that I was able to take the class on my time. Working full-time and having young children this was very helpful.”
- “A vast amount of information was presented in a way that was concise, easy to understand, and easy to find later on for reference.”
- “Very inclusive of different methods of telehealth delivery. There was a nice overview of many ways to use it. Some I had not thought much about before taking the class.”
