NAMI Family to Family Education Program in Central Nebraska

1. NAMI Family to Family Education Program in Central Nebraska

3. Quick Facts about Nebraska • Nebraska land area is 76,872.41 square miles (NAMI Central Nebraska covers 15,000 square miles of this land area) compared to all of the United States at 3,537,438.44 • There are 22.3 persons per square mile in Nebraska as compared to the United State average of 79.6 person per square mile. (with Omaha and Lincoln maintaining the majority of the state’s population.) • 7.3% of Nebraska’s population is under 5 years old. 25.1% of Nebraska’s population is under 18 years old. 13.3% of Nebraska’s population is over 65 years old. (All higher than the national average.) • 91.6% of the population is white with persons of Hispanic/Latino origin being the largest minority population at 7.5%.

4. Telehealth is . . . The use of technology to improve access to quality care. . .

6. Clinical Consults/ Telemedicine Mental Health Consults Tele-Emergency Rehab-Speech Wound-Ostomy Care Compassionate Calls Education Administrative Meetings Video Medical Interpreting Health Alert Network Telehealth Services

7. Telehealth Connection • Telehealth vs. Distance Learning

8. Telehealth Savings • Mileage Cost Savings • Time Savings • Travel Cost Savings • Environmental Savings • Ability to attend/have a class • Other

9. Family to FamilyEducation ProgramLessons Learned

10. Lessons Learned • Develop a working relationship with your telehealth staff. • Keep telehealth staff informed before, during, and after the 12 week program.

11. Lessons Learned • Put together a telehealth staff contact list that includes contact person’s name, office phone#, after hours cell#, and email address for each site.

12. Lessons Learned • Provide telehealth staff with instructors/facilitators cell#s.

13. Lessons Learned • Need to have backup teacher/facilitator for each site for the duration of the 12 weeks to cover absents/illness. Consider alternative class schedule.

14. Lessons Learned • Schedule a standing conference call each week between teachers/facilitators to cover needs for that week’s class, resolve any challenges, address questions that come up, etc.

15. Lessons Learned • Pre-set a procedure for calling off class during bad weather. (Ours was if any one of the locations closed schools due to weather, the F2F class was cancelled at all sites.) Don’t forget to let your telehealth staff know.

17. Lessons Learned • Put together a class registration list that includes phone# and email of each class participant for each location. Share this information with each teacher at the beginning of the classes. (Helps to put names to faces.) • Create a calling tree at each site if a class has to change locations or class has to be rescheduled.

18. Lessons Learned • Have funds for: • gas if family members have to travel to another location for one class. • food, drinks, tissues, flip charts, pens, and other supplies for each site. • Affiliates may want to consider stipends for teachers.

19. Lessons Learned • Have a central location, and a contact person, in each region (each affiliate), to be responsible for keeping student notebooks up to date and ready for the next class.

20. Lessons Learned • Have a back up plan when telehealth site(s) go down. Teachers should be prepared to do the whole class. • Team work is vital when jumping in at unexpected events taking place during the class. (cell phones from distraught children, coughing fits, etc)

21. Lessons Learned • No side bar discussions. All discussion are done as a group. • Breaks are important.

22. Lessons Learned • Handouts of brochures, resources, wall magnets, etc. need to be available to each site before the class is scheduled. • Have laminated charts at all sites (especially the emotional chart).

23. Lessons Learned • Hold a face-to-face debriefing meeting, within a week after the class is complete, with all teachers/facilitators. • Personalize all “thank you” cards and certifications with teacher & facilitator signatures.

24. Lessons Learned • Suggest having telehealth-experienced facilitators/teachers available at each site to walk teachers, new to the telehealth system, through the first 2-4 classes.

25. Lessons Learned • Trust the program process (We had anticipated barriers but it flowed once we started. The process of the program curriculum carries it’s self.) • We can not plan for all situations, but through planning, building relationships between instructors, and building relationships with our participants, it works!

26. Evaluation Comments “The telehealth was also helpful – that even though it was a small class we could get more out of it with other sights. Thanks!” “Our teaching team was great. The ability to use telehealth was a big asset and allowed us to learn as a larger group.” “The telehealth course was very handy and the equipment worked well. We interacted well with the 2 other groups. I highly recommend it! We bonded over the air!”

27. Our appreciation and thanks goes out to NAMI National, NAMI Nebraska, the Family-To-Family teachers, and most of all our participating family members. This pilot project could not have had the success we had with out them.

28. QUESTIONS . . . ?

29. Contact information American Telemedicine Association 1100 Connecticut Avenue, NW Suite 540 Washington, D.C. 20036 Phone: 202-223-3333 Email: info@americantelemed Website: www.americantelemed.org NAMI Central Nebraska Jean L. Wojtkiewicz, Affiliate President P.O. Box 2555 Kearney, Nebraska 68848 Phone: 308-224-9644 Email: jlwojo@yahoo.com