The Rural Telehealth Research Center (RTRC) worked cooperatively with the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy to establish data collection protocols and tools on a set of measures that are being used for a cross-grantee evaluation of the School-Based Telehealth Network Grant Program (SB TNGP) as specified in the funding opportunity announcement HRSA-16-012. The primary purpose of this project is to continue data collection from SB TNGP grantees to evaluate school-based telehealth using a common set of measures that will help build the evidence base and inform future policy changes and sustainability efforts.

Grantees are collecting data using the School-based Telehealth Evidence Collection (S-TEC) Tool that RTRC developed. There are two measurement periods per year: January through June covering the Spring semester; and July through December covering the Fall semester. Data monitoring and management activities include: 1) overseeing the progress of the data collection process; 2) quality control measures to identify specific areas for improvement; 3) identifying root causes of any problems; and 4) taking steps to correct processes and reduce or eliminate problems. The aim of the data monitoring and management function is to verify data accuracy, completeness, consistency, and timeliness. As we progress, we are able to further refine the tool and provide grantees with the latest version of the S-TEC and corresponding data element and training documents.

There may be products related to this project; please contact the lead researcher for more information.