It’s not right for all patients in all scenarios. But sometimes a dose of broadband is just what the doctor ordered.
That’s Susan Rose’s assessment of telemedicine, an increasingly popular means for reaching patients in remote areas where specialty care can be in short supply. Salt Lake City’s Veterans Affairs hospital has added basic obstetric and gynecological care to its quiver of tele-health offerings. Rose, the hospital’s sole obstetrician and gynecologist, demonstrated the technology on Thursday.
Women veterans tend to seek care from private clinics instead of the Veterans Health Administration, in part because the services they need weren’t available until recently.
Utah’s VA has operated a women’s clinic for 14 years, and Rose is said to be the only practicing OB/GYN in the VA system. But getting word out to patients is complicated by the fact that she’s responsible for serving patients throughout Utah, northwestern Nevada and parts of southeast Idaho.
She’s now able to "Skype" six of the VA’s 10 community based clinics, and anticipates seeing about a dozen patients a month this way.
Whether telemedicine will improve care is yet to be seen.
But Andrew Kalinen, who oversees the VA’s community clinics, said it’s a money-saver. "We’ve saved hundreds-of-thousands of dollars in travel alone," he said, explaining that the VA covers patients’ travel costs. Salt Lake Tribune
