Hawaii's telehealth reimbursement policy: our successful collaborative community approach

The State of Hawaii has been promoting telehealth implementation by developing health policy, soliciting financial endowments, and facilitating the development of a telecommunications infrastructure. Telemedicine or telehealth has been in existence for 40 years, but has yet to make the transition from a feasible tool to an integrated tool in health care delivery. In the emerging and fast changing health care environment, public and private sector organizations find an increasing need to collaborate. Hawaii's Telehealth Planning Project used the multi-sectoral collaborative approach to address telehealth challenges. The paper traces the Project's community development, and identifies Hawaii's legal and regulatory activities along with federal and international activities.