WELCOME
We're thrilled to launch this new way of connecting with our partners, collaborators, and the broader telehealth community.
The Center for Telehealth Research and Policy (C-TRaP) was founded to bridge research and real-world impact—advancing innovation, informing policy, and expanding access to care. Through this newsletter, we’ll share research highlights, lessons from pilot programs, and stories of collaboration that bring our mission to life. Our goal is to spark conversation, share progress, and strengthen the connections between academic, clinical, and community partners driving telehealth forward. This first edition marks the start of an exciting journey. Our partners—from Michigan State University to the University of Mississippi—bring expertise in health communication, implementation science, remote monitoring, and telemedicine infrastructure. Together, we’re exploring barriers and enablers to telehealth adoption, evaluating ECHO and federated learning models, and helping shape policies that make care more equitable and effective. Keep reading to find updates on our upcoming studies and a preview of what’s ahead as we grow this community. Thank you for joining us—here’s to many meaningful conversations and discoveries to come.
Dr. Becevic Addresses the Significance of C-TRaP
C-TRaP brings together experts in medicine, nursing, health sciences, engineering, and data science to evaluate the real-world impact of telehealth on patient outcomes, healthcare systems, and policy. The center’s work includes studying remote patient monitoring, analyzing Medicaid claims to inform policy, and using advanced data tools to understand how programs like Project ECHO transform clinical practice.
MEET THE TEAM
EVENTS
Health Sciences Research Day 2025
The 2025 Health Sciences Research Day was held on November 14th, 2025. Organized and sponsored by the MU School of Medicine Research Council, Health Sciences Research Day also partners with the MU School of Medicine, MU Sinclair School of Nursing. Dr. Becevic and Dr. Dandachi took this as an opportunity to officially promote and celebrate the new Center for Telehealth Research and Policy (C-TRaP) project. Below, Dr. Mirna Becevic (Director of Center for Telehealth) and Dr. Dima Dandachi (C-TRaP Deputy Director) answer questions and share additional information during the HSRA Grand Award Celebration.
CURRENT PROJECTS
Improve Outcomes
- Test whether remote patient monitoring (RPM) can cut 30-day readmissions for rural congestive heart failure (CHF) patients by 40%.
Inform Policy
- Track telehealth use among rural Medicaid beneficiaries before and after COVID-19 policy changes to guide state and federal decisions.
Transform Practice
- Measure how Project ECHO participation drives clinical change in chronic pain management, using AI and Medicaid claims data.
Understand Adoption
- Study leaders from 34 North American ECHO hubs to identify drivers and barriers to early telehealth innovation.
Advance Secure Data Sharing
- Build a privacy-preserving federated learning (FL) repository that enables safe, decentralized AI model training for Project ECHO.
Researchers from the University of Missouri School of Medicine recently received nearly $4 million from the Health Resources and Service Administration to establish a center dedicated to improving rural telehealth care.
"This grant will focus on setting up a center that will concentrate on gathering information and data about how telehealth is currently being used in rural communities and what gaps in care exist."
DISCLAIMER
The Center for Telehealth Research and Policy (C-TRaP) is funded by the Office for the Advancement of Telehealth (OAT) in the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under cooperative agreement number 1 U3GTH55162‐01‐00. The funding supports this website as well as all publications and presentations advanced from listed research projects. These contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of HRSA or any other funding agency.
Credits:
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