State overview (State statistics as completed in part 1) The current state of Telehealth in your state Infrastructure (does the state have the infrastructure to support broad telehealth use? Think about the utilities.

The Current State of Telehealth in South Dakota

Telehealth or telemedicine provides a promising future for healthcare provision in South Dakota. In this state, providers provide services to a large footprint, attending to patients who stay miles away from the offices of provision. The spread of South Dakota is more than 76,000 square miles, and out of 66 counties, nine have populations over 20,000 (Patrick et al., 2022). According to Patrick et al. (2022), Telehealth will likely bridge the significant care gaps and enhance general patient access. However, despite the state’s potential, findings show that telehealth services have historically not been fully utilized.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought the realization of the virtual system in almost every industry, if not all industries, including medicine. According to an analysis of the electronic medical records (EMR) data from providers in South Dakota in all specialties, there was a 1,600 increase in percent in telemedicine utilization, especially during the pandemic compared to 2019 (Patrick et al., 2022). It is crucial to note that the telehealth realm since 2020 has significantly differed from that in 2019. Since the wake-up call of the pandemic throughout the U.S. and worldwide, temporary changes were quickly integrated into telemedicine legislation. For instance, in March 2021, the state’s governor, Kristi Noem, signed a bill into law allowing healthcare providers to attend to patients through Telehealth without needing an in-person exam (Wicklund, 2021). South Dakota Senate Bill 96 entails emergency measures mentioned in the executive orders 2020-16 and 2020-07 (Wicklund, 2021). This bill is the first law in South Dakota to permanently expand connected health coverage and access beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. Governor Noem aimed to allow all providers in South Dakota to prescribe medications through Telehealth and even use audio only in telehealth platforms like phones. She is also adamant about permitting South Dakota to recognize medical licenses in all the states mentioned in the Uniform Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC). EMAC is a mutual help agreement that permits all states to share resources during human-made and natural emergencies (Wicklund, 2021).

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMC) has drastically expanded telehealth breadth services, especially because of public health emergencies (Patrick et al., 2022). Following the same trend were public insurance companies that increased their insurance coverage as well as alternatives for telemedicine care (Patrick et al., 2022). Right now, providers in South Dakota have a broader telemedicine services array that qualifies for reimbursement due to the rapid temporary expansions they made during the wake of the pandemic. For example, Alina Telehealth uses HIPAA-compliant video teleconferencing technology to partner with outpatient clinics, hospitals, and healthcare facilities all around the country to provide a broader range of quality telemedicine services to the state of South Dakota (Alina Telehealth, 2022).

In a survey of 248 providers in South Dakota, within three months from 2019 and 2020, the telemedicine visits scheduled by the providers in South Dakota in all specialties in Sanford Health System had increased by 1,600 percent. In both periods, psychiatry and family medicine were the top telemedicine visit users (Patrick et al., 2022). The following table shows a telemedicine specialty increase in 2020 compared to 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic (Patrick et al., 2022).

Now, the available telemedicine services in the state include telepsychiatry, tele-endocrinology, telecardiology, infectious illnesses, teleneurology, emergency telepsychiatry, telenephrology, locum tenens, and tele-ICU. Alina Telehealth (2022) describes all these services and what they entail. Telepsychiatry entails practicing the remote provision of psychiatric care via interactive and live video conferencing. Tele-endocrinology refers to a ser