Public health expert urges oversight of telemedicine, warns vaccine distribution and Arkansas Works reauthorization loom as legislative priorities

Dr. Joe Thompson, president of the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement, told the Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee that the center has used the state’s all-payer claims database to track COVID patterns, telemedicine growth and hospital closures. Thompson said telemedicine monthly visits rose from fewer than 200 before the pandemic to more than 20,000 by April of last year and called telemedicine "a new tool" that could improve rural access if its quality is monitored.

"I wanna caution. I think we're all ready to move forward and be over COVID, but we're in pretty dark days right now," Thompson said, urging attention to vaccine distribution, uptake and fulfillment issues. He told the committee the center does not have line-of-sight on where every vaccine dose ended up after distribution hubs released allocations and said allocation should prioritize highest-risk health-care workers and patients to reduce hospital burdens.

Thompson also highlighted that the legislature will need to consider reauthorizing and reappropriating the Medicaid expansion program (referred to in testimony as Arkansas Works) and noted continued policy conversations on pharmacy benefit manager oversight, telemedicine policy and crisis-stabilization units for mental-health crises. He said the center has provided analytic surge capacity to state agencies during the pandemic and offered to assist lawmakers with empiric evidence on telemedicine implementation.

Committee members pressed Thompson on quality measures for telemedicine; he said direct evidence of quality change is not yet available and that the state should monitor outcomes and craft policy that preserves in-person visits where clinically necessary.