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The most important news in healthcare: Friday, May 8th
Good morning. Today we’re covering the impact of telehealth on rural communities and a new drug to help treat a particularly pesky bacteria.
Source: InTouch Health
Virtual healthcare is changing the game for rural communities
The pulse:
Relaxed guidelines and improved compensation for virtual medicine are improving access to healthcare in rural areas across the country.
What’s changed, and how is it helping rural communities?
In the past few months, the federal government has rolled out stimulus support for telehealth and has allowed physicians to be paid the same amount for virtual and phone visits as they are for in-office appointments. The changes have been a boon for patients and hospitals in rural settings.
Experts have been advocating for increased telehealth support for years: since 2005, 170 rural hospitals have shut down, and patients have struggled for access to both primary care and specialist physicians. In situations where telehealth was available, patients often had to visit a clinic to video chat with a doctor who was even further away.
The government’s adjustments have allowed physicians and patients to embrace FaceTime: Wisconsin’s Marshfield Clinic Health System, for example, used to do 15,000 virtual appointments a year, but has now done 20,000 since March. While clinics are seeing a dip in overall patient volume due to the coronavirus, in the long-term, virtual medicine will ease travel requirements on patients and allow hospitals to create a sustainable, low-expense consultation system.
What are the barriers to receiving virtual care?
One of the most significant hurdles to overcome is internet access: 22% of people in rural areas don’t have benchmark broadband access, as compared to 2% of people in cities. Phone-only doctor’s visits can help with this, but the increasing reliance of healthcare on internet access creates an urgent need for broadband expansion.
Is telehealth here to stay?
Rural healthcare advocates hope so. Teresa Tyson, a nurse for a mobile clinic in southwest Virginia, said:
It's tremendous that they relaxed some of the federal rules that have been so important to us to connect with these patients. We'd hate to see it rescinded.
Bottom line it for me.
FaceTimes with physicians may improve access to healthcare in traditionally underserved communities.
Gut bacteria like C. diff (picture above) may be able to be treated by a new drug from Rebiotix. Source: BBC.
One man’s waste is another man’s treasure
The pulse
Rebiotix has developed a new microbiome-based drug to treat a bacteria that causes potentially life-threatening diarrheal illness.
What’s a microbiome?
The microbiome is a collection of tiny living things such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi that exists in the human body. While it may not be pleasant to imagine, the number of microbes in us outnumbers our own cells. Most of these microbes are not dangerous and can serve beneficial functions. For example, in our digestive tract, there are “good” bacteria that help us digest our food and keep out the “bad” bacteria – like C. difficile.
What is C. difficile?
C. difficile (C. diff for short) leads to serious diarrheal illness. There are half a million cases of C. diff in the U.S. each year. And C. diff is like that annoying guest you can’t get to leave – about 1 in 6 patients who get C. diff will get it again in the next few weeks; many people get recurrent infections for years.
So how will this new drug help prevent C. diff from coming back?
Rebiotix’s drug essentially works by re-introducing good bacteria to patients who have had their guts taken over by C. diff. They do this by using fecal matter from a donor. By donating their stool, healthy people can essentially pass on their healthy microbiome to others. This fecal matter is then incorporated into an enema-based drug and given to the patient.
That sounds…unconventional.
Believe it or not, fecal matter transplants are actually already a thing, and have shown a lot of success in treating C diff and getting it to stay away. Rebiotix is now trying to make this treatment more traditional by making it into a drug that would go through the traditional drug development process. In a recent study, the company showed positive results for their therapeutic, though they didn’t yet have a placebo group to compare to.
Bottom line it for me.
Rebiotix is working to market fecal matter transplants as a traditional drug for patients with recurrent C. diff infections. By re-introducing a healthy microbiome to these patients, the drug might be able to put an end to the recurring cycle of infection.
Rapidfire
Schools in Montana re-opened on Thursday, though schools almost everywhere else in the country remain closed.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments regarding whether employers can deny contraceptive coverage to employees by citing religious and moral obligations. Though the Affordable Care Act (also known as “Obamacare”) required all health plans to cover contraception, the Trump administration created exemptions for this rule.
While battling employee protests about a lack of appropriate coronavirus protection in the workplace, Amazon has donated millions to Covid-19 research projects across the country.