Strengthening New Mexico schools with telehealth

School-based health centers (SBHCs) provide accessible, integrated, culturally responsive care to students. SBHCs support early identification of health conditions and remove common barriers to accessing care like transportation. This is particularly important for kids in rural communities and kids of color who may face disparities in access to care that negatively impacts health outcomes.

In New Mexico, over 90% of SBHCs are located in a Health Provider Shortage Area for primary care, behavioral care or both.¹ According to a report from the New Mexico Department of Health, 32% of students would have gone to an urgent care or emergency room if not for an SBHC, and 29% of students have only received care from their SBHC.² SBHCs are also associated with improved academic outcomes like attendance, grade point average and reduced suspensions.³

UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of New Mexico is dedicated to innovative, impactful collaborations to improve the health of kids in our communities. This includes increasing access to care and screenings, bettering health literacy, and driving improvements in HEDIS quality measures like child-well visits. To support these goals, we are collaborating with Goodside Health to strengthen access to care for students across New Mexico.

Goodside Health will bring on-demand, telehealth urgent care to 50 New Mexico schools during the 2024-2025 school year. The telehealth services will operate within a school’s existing infrastructure, expanding the school’s ability to provide urgent care services like triage for common illnesses, write prescriptions and help on-site nurses or administrators provide paid testing or over-the-counter medication to students. The most common reasons for a telehealth visit include common conditions like cold symptoms, headaches and nausea.

On-demand virtual evaluations and treatments allow students to get help and return to class quickly. Parents have the option to join the telehealth visits, allowing them to be engaged without having to visit the school. When kids do need to go home, they are equipped with next steps or prescriptions so they don’t have to visit another provider before beginning treatment. This minimizes the time before starting medication and helps kids get back on track to feeling better.

Additionally, Goodside Health will host wellness events at schools to address HEDIS measures like well-child visits and key state-level priorities like mental health, access to contraception and screening related to social drivers of health. The events offer comprehensive annual well-child visits, sports physicals, mental health screenings, and age-appropriate vaccinations, on school campuses and during the school day.

To effectively target these programs to advance health equity, Goodside Health is working closely with stakeholders including the New Mexico Department of Health and the New Mexico Alliance for School Based Health Centers. This includes using data to identify gaps in access to care, areas experiencing a shortage of providers, and communities with low rates of well-child visits. Goodside Health is also collaborating with New Mexico’s Health Information Exchange to ensure effective data exchange with stakeholders like a student’s primary care provider.

"Helping children access the care that they need is one of the most important ways that we can support the health and well-being of New Mexico families and reach our goal of becoming the healthiest state in the country by 2024. UnitedHealthcare's collaboration with Goodside Health to bring telehealth services and wellness events to New Mexico schools is an impactful investment in the health care system that serves children and families across our state."- Kristin Oreskovich, CPNP; Clinical Operations Manager, New Mexico Department of Health School-Based Health Center Program

The telehealth program is modeled to support sustainability. While funding from UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of New Mexico will support the start-up costs for each school site the ongoing services are covered by Medicaid and commercial insurance providers, extending the benefits of the services to all kids in the community regardless of their insurance provider. By bringing telehealth urgent care services and on-site wellness directly to kids in schools, UnitedHealthcare and Goodside Health aim to help more kids access the care they need and to strengthen the health care system serving New Mexicans.