NMTHA About Us Page

The 2013 telehealth reimbursement bill was signed by the governor.

About Us

What is the New Mexico Telehealth Alliance?

The NM Telehealth Alliance is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation dedicated to promoting telehealth solutions to deliver quality healthcare throughout the state. The Alliance is a network of members representing a broad spectrum of public and private healthcare organizations. We provide technical and program support to our members and enable them to effectively share resources. Our board members, officers, and executive director are all volunteers.

Why is an Alliance Needed?

Federal, state, and private funds are spent on telehealth programs with little or no attention to coordination with other programs, efficient reuse of existing resources, and delivering the best level of cost-effective service. Existing and proposed programs create a patchwork of telehealth solutions with overlaps, gaps, and little long-term accountability. No entity coordinates telehealth statewide and ensures that telehealth programs and dollars generate the best possible health benefits for New Mexicans. How can New Mexico ensure that dollars spent on telehealth programs are applied effectively and efficiently?

New Mexico needs an organization to provide the following telehealth-related services:

Clinical Coordination: Identifying healthcare delivery needs, finding organizations to deliver healthcare services, monitoring the delivery, and ensuring improved health outcomes.
Technical Coordination: Identifying the proper technical solution for healthcare service delivery including equipment evaluation, telecommunications connectivity, reuse of existing resources, scheduling, network management, support, and maintenance.
Health Information Technology: Managing information exchange among healthcare providers and ensuring compliance with federal, state, and other standards.
Administrative Services: Reimbursement issues, administrative policy and procedures, legislative issues, and general management of the telehealth process.

Every dollar spent on coordination ensures that dollars spent on specific telehealth programs generate the greatest improvement in health across all programs and regions of the state.

What is the Alliance Doing Now?

We're currently working with an Australian vendor to bring a a remote monitoring kiosk into to New Mexico for testing and preliminary deployment. The device will enable physicians to monitor patient paramaters such as pulse, blood pressure, and glucose level without an office visit. Likely sites for the devices include senior centers, senior living and assisted living facilities, and variuos community centers.

In a related effort, the alliance is in discussions with Technet and PNM regarding use of the PNMs high-speed network for monitoring power stations and transformers. The network extends through much of the state and has excess capacity that could be used for telehealth and other applications.

This page was last updated on 09/01/11
Address comments or queries about this web site to burd@unm.edu.