From the Midwest Telehealth Edition…
TELEHEALTH EVERYWHERE! is a regional telehealth conference for executives, providers, managers, staff engaged in the delivery of telehealth services.
April 7, – 9, 2026
Hyatt Regency at the Mall of America 3200 East 81st Street
Bloomington, MN 55425 United States
The Park Rapids Enterprise reports…
“Bjerke is the embodiment of ‘service over self’ and brings that level of commitment to his job every day, serving veterans,” wrote Hubbard County Administrator Jeff Cadwell.
The VSO’s Accessing Telehealth through Local Area Stations program was nominated for the AMC Outstanding County Achievement Award.
“The VSO jumped at the chance to create this unique service for area veterans. Assistant VSO Aaron Majors was instrumental in navigating the project’s requirements to get this service up and running,” Cadwell reported. “While not chosen for the awards for which they were nominated, we thank them, their entire department, and their dedicated volunteers, for their sacrifice and commitment to our country and to Hubbard County.”
For some Deer River students, seeing the doctor means a full day out of school.
“Most of it is transportation and getting up to Cass Lake for an appointment, if they have one,” explained district employee Susan Nelson. “And that can be an all-day affair. You’re 60 miles up and 60 miles down.”
The Deer River Public Schools district overlaps with the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Reservation, including the communities of Ball Club and Inger, and Nelson said almost of half of Deer River students are Native American. Many are covered by the Indian Health Service, meaning getting care can present a significant travel burden.
There’s an Essentia Health clinic and hospital just a mile from Deer River High School, which can make appointments easy for some families. But even then, parents and guardians still have to take time away from work to get their kids to appointments — another barrier to health care.
A new program is trying to address those challenges with just an iPad and a quiet room.
Deer River launched its telehealth program with help from Essentia in October. Nelson is the project manager.
The process itself is pretty straightforward. On the iPad, Nelson has set up video conferencing apps like Microsoft Teams and Zoom and health care programs like MyChart.
If a student has an appointment, they log in on the iPad, which they can connect to a TV if they’d like. Then Nelson steps out of the room — which is also her office — until they’re done.
Finding a mental health provider in rural areas is hard but Minnesota researchers said it is much harder for communities of color in small towns and a new report laid out specific obstacles to care and solutions showing hope.
The Center for Rural Policy and Development said rural communities across the state are becoming more diverse but the center’s latest report showed there is still little awareness about the mental health needs of people of color in these areas. Lack of insurance, stigma, and trust issues are factors complicating the issue.
Marnie Werner, vice president of research and operations at the center, said refugee and immigrant populations also tend to be isolated from their small-town neighbors.
The article offers some solutions…
Recommendations in the report include identifying mentors who can work with students of color, in hopes they will eventually take on mental health care roles in their communities or become school social workers. The report also cited a move by the state Legislature last year to adopt licensure reforms. Backers said it could open more career pathways in the mental health field.
The report talks more about telehealth…
Telehealth can especially help rural people of color access appropriate, effective mental healthcare, says Terica Toliver, Senior Director of Clinical Therapy at Louisiana-based Iris Telehealth, which provides therapy via telehealth through her contract with ElevaCare in Southwest Minnesota. Telehealth gives people of color a broader range of providers to choose from, including providers who share the same racial and cultural backgrounds.
It’s not a perfect solution, however. Hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans don’t have access to the broadband internet service required for telehealth to work reliably,[26] and telehealth isn’t for everyone. Some patients simply don’t feel comfortable talking to a stranger about their mental health on a digital screen.
Rural Minnesota is aging more rapidly than the rest of the state, and northern St. Louis County is part of that trend. Older adults already make up a growing share of the population, outnumbering children in many rural communities. The 2025 Minnesota Rural Health Care Chartbook, released Monday by the Minnesota Department of Health, outlines how that demographic shift is colliding with signs of strain across the rural health care system.
One of the clearest indicators is in emergency medical services. Minnesota saw a net loss of 542 EMS certifications last year, MDH reported, a decline that is being felt most sharply in rural areas. Small departments often have a limited number of responders, so even one or two departures can reduce coverage and extend response times. The trend arrives as the region’s population grows older, increasing the number of medical calls that depend on a prompt EMS response.
That context matters when looking at the report’s findings on stroke care. MDH notes that access to stroke-capable hospitals has improved substantially, with roughly 84 percent of rural residents now living within a 30-minute drive of a designated facility. The expanded hospital readiness is a clear gain, but its effectiveness hinges on the first link in the chain. Without adequate EMS staffing to reach patients quickly, the benefit of having more stroke-ready hospitals within driving distance becomes harder to realize.
Telehealth is mentioned as a possible solution that isn’t living up to potential…
Telehealth, which expanded rapidly during the early years of the pandemic, has not filled the gap as broadly in rural Minnesota as hoped. MDH notes that rural residents used telehealth at lower rates than urban residents over the past year. While the report estimates that around one in ten rural Minnesotans lacks adequate broadband for video visits, the experience within northern St. Louis County suggests the number may be higher in some areas. Broadband access remains inconsistent, and in locations where fiber has not reached, video-based care can be unreliable. The variation limits the effectiveness of telehealth as a substitute for in-person services.
I wrote about the $1 billion application earlier; MPR News takes a deeper look…
Minnesota has applied for a share of $50 billion in federal funding for rural health care that was approved by Congress as part of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The Minnesota Department of Health applied for $1 billion over five years. Its 62-page application lays out detailed plans for the funds, including fellowships aimed at getting more medical students training and working in rural areas, adding more telehealth opportunities and providing more preventative care screenings in local venues, such as schools, pharmacies and tribal clinics.
It is in reaction to losing funds in other places…
The Minnesota Hospital Association estimates that the state could lose $2.4 billion in federal health care funding in the first year alone, fiscal year 2028. The MHA also finds that 140,000 Minnesotans on Medicaid could lose their healthcare coverage while another 60,000 Minnesotans will likely drop their ACA health insurance because of the rising costs.
It sounds like the impact could be harder felt in rural Minnesota…
About 30 percent of Minnesotans live in rural areas of the state, where the health care system has been severely strained in recent years.
There’s a shortage of physicians, nurses and other medical professionals, and the number of rural medical clinics and hospitals closing is on the rise. The MDH wrote in its application for the Rural Health Transformation Program funding that 34 out of Minnesota’s 95 rural hospitals are financially distressed, which means they’ve had four or more years of negative operating margins in the past eight years. Just this year, Mayo Clinic Health System announced it was closing six rural clinics in southeast Minnesota.
According to the application, Minnesota’s rural residents on average must travel 64 minutes for medical-surgical care, whereas people in the state’s urban areas travel just 19 minutes on average for care.
McKnight Senior Living reports…
Residents of assisted living communities and nursing homes have significantly lower odds of using telehealth compared with older adults who use long-term services and supports and live in the community at large, according to a new study. But assisted living residents were more likely to use it than were nursing home residents.
I thought this was interesting because I might have assumed the opposite but…
The study, led by researchers from Indiana University Bloomington and the University of Minnesota, shows that although telehealth offers a promising strategy for improving access to care and health outcomes, where an older adult lives will affect their odds of using it. The findings were published Tuesday in a JAMDA – The Journal of the Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medical Association article in press.
Using data from almost 7,000 participants in the 2021-2022 National Core Indicators-Aging and Disabilities Adult Consumer Survey for LTSS, the researchers found that assisted living residents had 20% lower odds of using telehealth, and nursing home residents had 63% lower odds of using it, compared with their community-dwelling counterparts. Nursing home residents had 54% lower odds of using telehealth than did assisted living residents.
The findings, the authors said, highlight a disparity in telehealth access and delivery across various LTSS settings. The lower use in assisted living communities and nursing homes, they said, may reflect differences in infrastructure, staffing and resident autonomy.
There is a shortage of speech-language pathologists across the country and in Minnesota.
According to the National Institutes of Health, 1 in 14 kids has had a communication disorder in the past year. The University of Minnesota says it’s working on creative solutions to address the issue.
“It’s really improved his quality of life,” Jessica Weiche said. Her son, 8-year-old Everett Weiche, has been in therapy with a speech-language pathologist since he was a baby and sees an SLP every week at his elementary school in Plymouth.
Emily Aust, president of the Minnesota Speech-Language Hearing Association, said there are districts in Minnesota with openings for SLPs.
And they talk about telehealth as part of the solution…
Becky Ludewig Lulai, director of clinical programs in speech-language pathology at the U of M, said they’re launching telehealth programs in two rural Minnesota school districts.
They have also structured their program to get more graduate students out in schools.
“We have 30 students each getting three external rotations in our programs,” Lulai said.
Communication is essential in school, and students like Everett continue to build on it.
The Minnesota Star Tribune reports…
A $1 billion grant to improve rural health care won’t offset the much bigger losses from looming cuts to the federal Medicaid health program, but Minnesota wasn’t going to miss out on its chance for the money.
The state completed its application on time last week for the rural health transformation funding, which President Donald Trump’s administration and congressional Republicans offered to soften the blow of Medicaid cuts. Wisconsin similarly announced its appeal for funding.
“This is a lot of money,” said Diane Rydrych, health policy director for the Minnesota Department of Health. “It’s really significant for Minnesota if we get this grant, but it’s also a really tough time. It’s not going to be sufficient funding to address all needs.”
Next up: an unsettling wait. Minnesota should find out in the next month if it will receive its share.
Each state applied for $200 million per year for five years, but the actual amount could vary. Some have worried Republican-led states could have an advantage, given Trump’s rhetoric against Democrats and actions in Democrat-led cities and states, such as military deployments and immigration crackdowns.
Sonds as if the funding could be used for telehealth…
Other goals in the next five years include an increase in telehealth medical appointments and a 10% reduction in rural Minnesotans who return to hospitals with avoidable problems. Essentia Health employs paramedics who visit with patients and help prevent their hospital readmissions, though it has made cuts to the program.
The federal government billed the funding as one-time support for five years, so Rydrych said the state focused its application on up-front investments that could pay off after the money runs dry. Technology upgrades to boost telemedicine visits were one example.
The federal government shutdown is creating new challenges for Winona Health patients who rely on telehealth.
Winona Health officials say the number of people affected is small, but Medicare patients are feeling the change. Some visits that had been conducted virtually must now happen in person.
Hospice care is also impacted. Certain recertification visits that were allowed over telehealth will now require face-to-face appointments.
Administrators say they expect telehealth options to return once Congress resolves the budget impasse.
Mayo Clinic is closing six locations in Southern Minnesota. Montgomery, Belle Plaine, Wells, Caledonia, North Mankato, and Saint Peter will all lose clinics. The Mayo Clinic Health System said in a statement it plans to consolidate clinic services, but locals worry about a lack of access. Montgomery City Administrator Brian Heck said rural Minnesota does not have robust broadband and not every patient is able to use virtual care. The six clinics will close on December 10th.
Do you have public space where visitors can securely contact telehealth providers? The NRTRC ( National Consortium of Telehealth Resource Centers ) is trying to grow their publicly available map of places where folks can go to use Telehealth Access Points. The map could be valuable for folks who lack technology to do a telehealth call from home whether they are on vacation, experiencing homelessness or disaster or simply don’t have the technology or tech skills. Here’s more info from a recent post on the NDIA listserv…
In celebration of Telehealth Awareness Week and in anticipation of Digital Inclusion Week, the NRTRC needs your help reaching 250 Telehealth Access Points (TAPs) on the NRTRC Find Telehealth Map.
A TAP is a public-facing space that furnishes a device with working camera, speaker and microphone, an internet connection and privacy considerations in the form of a dedicated room or kiosk for the general public to access a telehealth appointment. These have been found throughout the nation at community anchor institutions like libraries, social service agencies, community health centers and more. The NRTRC began mapping public-facing TAPs in 2023 in hopes of creating awareness of the spaces that are available for telehealth appointments and also to help navigators, providers and telehealth participants to find the resources they are looking for to participate in access to telehealth services.
We are thrilled to announce that as of today, we have mapped over 200 TAPs in all around the country, from New York State, to the Marshall Islands! But we know there are more out there! We are striving to map 250 or more of these by the time Digital Inclusion Week rolls out on October 6th and we need your help to accomplish this. If your organization or any organization you know of is providing a TAP in your community, please fill out this form to get it on the map. TAPs continue to be self-enrolling so you can do this at any time.
We appreciate your participation in this journey and look forward to celebrating this milestone with you all in October. If you have questions about the NRTRC find telehealth map, feel free to reference this user guide, or reach out to us directly.
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr yesterday introduced a declarative ruling that would reverse the decisions that enabled use of E-Rate funding to provide Wi-Fi on school buses. He also circulated an order for FCC reconsideration, which would end funding for Wi-Fi hotspots for children or library patrons for use outside of schools and libraries.
The press release announcing the moves says that the extension of the COVID-19 era rules exceeded the FCC’s authority. Carr also claimed the programs had a record of “poor stewardship of scarce funds, and invited waste, fraud, and abuse.”
Expansion of the Universal Service Fund (USF) Schools and Libraries program — also known as the E-Rate program — was approved by the FCC in July 2024.
A long list of healthcare stakeholders have signed a letter urging strong support for the Acute Hospital Care at Home waiver program in upcoming government funding decisions.
Writing to Congress this week, the organizations – including HIMSS (parent company of Healthcare IT News), AARP, American Telemedicine Association, Minnesota Hospital Association, Intermountain Health, Mass General Brigham, St. Luke’s Health System, UCAHealth and numerous others organized by Moving Health Home – said the evidence speaks for itself.
Patients, caregivers and providers are generally in strong support of at-home acute care, they said, and as such lawmakers should support the proposed five-year hospital-at-home waiver extension because the model has helped improve patient outcomes, lower healthcare costs and bolster older Americans’ access to medical care.
Moreover, it “will not lead to new costs” – they said in their letter on Wednesday.
They pointed to a 2022 study of patients at a New York City hospital, admitted to either hospital-at-home or inpatient care between September 2014 and August 2017, which found that one hospital-at-home program reduced costs by nearly $6,000 per patient compared with inpatient care.
Further, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has previously found that patients in hospital-at-home programs have lower mortality rates, readmissions and spending post-discharge, while resulting in positive patient and provider experiences, the 140 organizations pointed out.
These and other studies warrant the continued investment and innovation proposed in the Hospital Inpatient Services Modernization Act (S. 2237/H.R. 4313), they told the Democratic and Republican leaders.
The Grand Rapids Herald Review reports…
Last week, Essentia Health joined a coalition of health care organizations calling on Congress to extend Medicare coverage for telehealth services before it expires on Sept. 30. In a letter to Congressional leaders, Essentia urged either a permanent extension or, at minimum, a two-year extension, be established to provide stability and clarity for patients, providers and the broader health care system.
Essentia Health focuses on the need for telehealth in rural areas…
As a health care system serving primarily rural communities, Essentia has leveraged telehealth to deliver primary and specialty care to patients who would otherwise have to travel long distances to receive care.
Essentia serves more than 12,300 patients on average per month through telehealth services, with providers conducting an average of 15,000 telehealth visits or consults per month.