February 19, 2010
TeleHealth Brings Doctors to Patients
Wisconsin Rapids Tribune
Contributed by Tammy Lowrey
Communications and Public Relations Director
Moundview Memorial Hospital & Clinics
FRIENDSHIP – Area residents now have access to more than
25 additional specialty services at Moundview Memorial Hospital & Clinics
through Telehealth.
The service uses interactive video conferencing, allowing specialty
doctors in other cities to provide face-to-face, confidential
exams to patients at Moundview. [NOTE: The “interactive
video conferencing is GlobalMedia’s EasyShareVC™.] The
Telehealth program was made available at Moundview through a
partnership with Marshfield Clinic and a grant from the Wisconsin
Public Services Commission.
Three nurses at Moundview recently were trained on the use of
the Telehealth equipment by Dr. Nina Antoniotti, director for
Marshfield Clinic’s Telehealth Program. The hospital
is now scheduling patients for appointments, and the service
will be available to hospitalized patients needing specialty
care.
“Distance should never be a barrier to high quality specialty
care,” Atoniott
said. “Patients deserve to receive services close to their home
at a time and place that is convenient for them. Telehealth allows patients,
doctors and nurses to talk to each other as if they are in the same room. All
the exams, tests and medical information are conducted in real
time and are sent to the specialists safely and confidentially
through a high-speed telephone line.”
“Moundview will use Telehealth for specialties that we
do not currently offer onsite,” said Jeremy Normington, chief executive officer at Moundview
Memorial. “This includes allergy, bariatric services, dermatology,
endocrinology, ENT, behavioral health, neurology, pain management and wound
healing. Telehealth will save area residents time and money by providing
the care they need at their local hospital. Patients can
ask their primary care practitioner to set up a Telehealth consult
right at Moundview.”
The Marshfield Clinic Telehealth Network began in 1997 with a
grant from the Office of Rural Health Policy. In 2000, it received
an additional grant from the Office for the Advancement of Telehealth,
Health Resources and Services Administration, to continue to expand
its original program and move further into communities that would
benefit from Telehealth services. The program has been very
successful at bridging the gap between resources and remote populations’ unmet
health care needs.
Antoniotti and other Marshfield Clinic personnel worked with
Moundview’s
information technology and facilities staff to bring Telehealth
to the hospital. Telehealth-trained nurses at Moundview are: Terri
Joy Weichert, Crystal Wormet, Linda Charles and Cindy Buchanan. The
lead nurse for the program is Weichert who will greet and prepare
the Telehealth patients for their clinical exams. |
