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Law360 (April 8, 2020, 9:22 PM EDT) -- The Indian Health Service said Wednesday it's expanding the use of remote communications technology at its health care facilities so patients can stay at home and reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19 as the novel coronavirus sweeps through the country.
The expanded use of audio and video telehealth communications comes after the IHS issued guidance on March 27 allowing more of its health care workers to use the secure, non-public-facing Cisco Meeting platform to treat patients during the public health emergency, the agency said.
The IHS — an arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that provides health care for 2.6 million members of 574 federally recognized tribes in 37 states — can now help more Native Americans while they practice social distancing at home, HHS Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement.
"Thanks to regulatory flexibility and hard work by IHS, providers will be allowed to use everyday technologies to hold appointments with their patients," Azar said Wednesday. "Telehealth options ensure that heroic front-line IHS providers who may be under stress from responding to COVID-19 have maximum flexibility to provide the care patients need."
Under the expanded program, IHS service units and clinicians using the Cisco Meeting system will get verbal consent from patients who attend telehealth appointments, according to the IHS. The health care providers must verify each patient at the beginning of each meeting and cannot record sessions, the agency said.
Cisco Meeting was already used for some IHS telehealth services, mostly by the Telebehavioral Health Center of Excellence. But since six IHS sites participated in a telehealth pilot project last week, the Cisco Meeting system is being adopted more broadly, according to the agency. The IHS is now in the process of training employees how to use the platform.
On March 20, leaders of several Native American organizations said the coronavirus pandemic was severely straining tribal health care services that are already underfunded by the federal government, with the CEO of the National Congress of American Indians saying the situation threatens "disaster" for tribes.
Since then, tribes have received more than $10 billion as part of the $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill signed by President Donald Trump on March 27, including an $8 billion "stabilization fund" to support tribal governments dealing with the pandemic. Of the $8 billion in emergency funding, the IHS is receiving more than $1 billion to help tribes pay for COVID-19 treatment and containment of the virus.
--Editing by Alanna Weissman.
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