GREG HALES North Country HealthCare
Posted: Sunday, July 4, 2010 5:00 am
Telemedicine is allowing North Country HealthCare to expand its primary care services across a very large service area from Lake Havasu City on Arizona's California border to Springerville on the New Mexico border.
The technology makes it possible for patients to visit medical providers miles away via direct video conference links coupled with high tech instruments such as hand-held examination cameras or digital stethoscopes.
The telemedicine technology is saving time and money for patients as well as their medical providers. Steve McCrosky is a family nurse practitioner at North Country HealthCare, who lives in Flagstaff and practices two days a week in Winslow and two days a week in Flagstaff. Thanks to telemedicine, he has been able to open up his schedule so he can see patients from Winslow on the days he is in Flagstaff. The patients can get care delivered to them where they are when they need it, and Steve McCrosky can provide the service without getting in the car.
During a telemedicine visit a "telepresenter" such as a medical assistant or nurse sits in the exam room with the patient and acts as the doctor's hands and eyes. The telepresenter can use a camera with a close-up lens to look at a rash or a video otoscope to look inside the patient's ears, and the doctor can examine the patient in real time from miles away while carrying on a conversation with the patient. Patients and providers can establish positive relationships, which makes acceptance of the process high, especially if the patients are able to save time or gain access to services that would be otherwise hard to receive.
North Country HealthCare has registered with the FDA to do a formal research study to evaluate digital stethoscopes in telemedicine applications. Littmann Stethoscopes, marketed by the 3M Company, are among the world's oldest and most respected stethoscopes. Littman is now manufacturing FDA-approved digital stethoscopes that are able to amplify and record heart and lung sounds. The company has created software that allows these sounds to be heard over the internet in a telemedicine encounter. The research is designed to find out if the quality of the sound is equal or comparable to the sound you would hear if you were in the same room with the patient. Positive study results would support FDA approval of the telemedicine software.
North Country HealthCare is developing a telemedicine program that will allow a provider to see HIV patients across the system without driving hours to a remote location. Another program will bring specialists from Banner Health System to Flagstaff one or two days a month where they can see Hepatitis C patients by telemedicine at several North Country sites on the same day. North Country is already providing behavioral health care to remote sites through telemedicine and its pharmacy is gearing up to launch a "telepharmacy" program. In the future, North Country would like to use telemedicine to monitor frail elderly patients at home and reduce the frequency of readmissions to the hospital.
At a time when the health care system needs to provide better access to care at a lower cost, telemedicine has a great deal of potential to be part of the solution, especially in rural and undeserved areas.
Greg Hales is the program coordinator for telehealth at North Country HealthCare.
Posted in Columnists on Sunday, July 4, 2010 5:00 am Updated: 8:48 pm.
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