ECHO Bill

Floor Speech

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Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I come to the floor to express my support for the ECHO Act, which the Senate will be voting on in approximately 1 hour.

This represents bipartisan work--another bipartisan achievement during this very productive term of Congress. In this case it is Senators Hatch and Schatz who have led us to this morning's vote.

The ECHO Act is named after Project ECHO, an innovative telehealth- inspired model originally conceived at the University of New Mexico.

Project ECHO has created promising opportunities for primary care clinicians to receive high-quality specialty training remotely. In this way, the most remote patient in the most underserved area can receive specialized care by his hometown doctor or provider.

I am a longtime supporter of using technology and telehealth to improve patients' access to quality care.
New Mexico is a State with many rural areas, as is my State of Mississippi. For that reason, Mississippi and New Mexico have had to be leaders in innovative health care models for years, such as Project ECHO in New Mexico and the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, MS.

At UMMC we are national leaders in providing technology-enabled care remotely. While ECHO emphasizes training among professionals, the University of Mississippi Medical Center has used remote technology for clinical care and patient monitoring.

Since 2003, the medical center in Jackson has reached more than one- half million rural Mississippians through the use of telehealth. To date, the program includes more than 30 specialties and can reach patients at more than 200 clinical sites.

Like Senator Hatch, I have reached across the aisle to work with our friend from Hawaii, Senator Schatz, to expand an innovative model for the rest of the country. Specifically, I worked this year with Senator Schatz on the CONNECT for Health Act, which has been endorsed by nearly 100 organizations. Like CONNECT, the ECHO Act aims at taking a proven approach to technology-enabled care and bringing it to underserved populations across the country.

The CONNECT for Health Act, which is S. 2484, would be a small but significant step toward payment parity for telehealth services under the Medicare Program. In addition to removing specific barriers to telemedicine, the bill would allow for coverage of certain remote patient monitoring services for patients with multiple chronic diseases.

Remote patient monitoring is a model the University of Mississippi Medical Center has used to expand access, improve quality, and reduce hospital admissions for some of our State's most underserved populations.

So I want to thank Senator Schatz for his leadership on CONNECT for Health and also ECHO, which again we will be voting on in just a few moments. I extend my utmost appreciation to Senator Schatz and to Senator Hatch and the Committee on Finance for including policies inspired by our CONNECT for Health Act in the bipartisan chronic care outline.

I am confident proposals to advance telehealth can improve access and cut costs, and I look forward to seeing CONNECT enacted also, but today I am pleased and thrilled we are taking an important step forward with the passage of the ECHO Act.

I yield the floor.

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