Targeting Telehealth as a Chronic Care Management Tool

PCORI has issued grants totaling more than $27 million to three research projects comparing virtual care to in-person care.

Three healthcare organizations exploring the use of telehealth in care management are getting grants from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI).

The non-profit, which focuses on clinical effectiveness research (CER), announced more than $27 million in grant awards for three projects comparing care delivery via telehealth against traditional care methods.

"At the center of comparative clinical effectiveness research is a recognition that patients’ needs are diverse and not all treatments or interventions have the same effects for everyone,” Harv Feldman, MD, MSCE, PCORI’s deputy executive director for patient-centered research programs, said in a press release. "These CER studies will generate evidence about how different approaches to care may work better for some patients for health concerns facing different people every day."

The three projects are:

Tapan Mehta, PhD, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, is receiving almost $11.5 million to study how two different telehealth programs—remote patient monitoring (RPM) and digital health coaching—might help with care management for people living with type 2 diabetes who have multiple chronic conditions and physical disabilities. The study will examine each approach individually as well as together.

Stephen Henry, MD, MSc, and Aimee Moulin, MD, MAS, of the University of California, Davis, are receiving $6.4 million to compare treatments for patients living with substance use disorder (SUD). The research will compare outcomes for patients who start buprenorphine treatment in the emergency department and transition to an outpatient program by telehealth as compared to those undergoing in-person treatment.

Richard Skolansky, DSC, and Kevin McLaughlin, PT, DPT, of Johns Hopkins University, are receiving almost $9.6 million to study the effectiveness of a telerehabilitation program for people living with chronic low back pain against in-clinic treatment.

The grant awards are part of a larger group of 10 awards totaling $165 million for CER research projects. Since 2010, the organizations has awarded more than $4.5 billion in grants for CER research.