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Southwest Telehealth Resource Center Blog

Hospitals and the Open-door Transfer Policy: Can We Do a Better Job?

By Alan Pitt on Mar 02, 2016

Several weeks ago I was presented with a CT scan on a new patient, a young woman with a severe headache who had been transferred overnight by air ambulance from another hospital. As a center that specializes in diseases of the nervous system, my facility, the Barrow Neurological Institute (BNI), routinely accepts people from around the country. And since this woman had been sent to us because the CT scan from the outside facility was interpreted as her possibly having blood in the brain, no further questions were asked. Sounds like responsible and compassionate healthcare, right? But there was a hitch: The patient didn't need to be transferred at all.

5 Ways Telemedicine Can Improve Your Practice Revenue

By Teresa Iafolla on Feb 03, 2016

We all know telemedicine brings huge benefits to patient care - from improving care accessibility to reducing medication noncompliance and hospital readmissions.

But telemedicine can also be a path to better practice profitability. Adding telemedicine services to your practice can actually drive up your revenue.

TeleICU Experience - University of Utah

By Edward Kimball and Nate Gladwell on Jan 06, 2016

To respond to the growing need for intensivist support among many facilities in the mountain west, a new service has been created within the University of Utah Health Care's extensive Telehealth System. When a regional hospital lacks intensivist coverage, their primary ICU attending is out sick, the local pulmonologist goes on vacation, or an expanding community ICU service finds itself short-handed, the University of Utah’s TeleICU program is here to help.

The TeleICU program has been implemented for just over a year, with many success stories. Many patients who otherwise may have been transferred to a tertiary center have been able to stay in their community hospitals, near family and support systems, while providing revenue for the local hospital. This virtual intensivist coverage allows our affiliate facilities to function at the top of their skill set, and patients that do require transfer to a larger center can be more rapidly identified.

Need Telemedicine Services? We've Got You Covered.

By Nancy Rowe on Dec 09, 2015

The benefits of telemedicine and telehealth have been clearly supported over the past 20 years with more than 20,000 research papers published. Telemedicine reduces barriers to care, improves patient access to specialists, helps medical practitioners expand their practice reach, and can realize substantial cost savings for healthcare systems and patients.

As the technology has become more affordable and generic, and states enact parity legislation, the market for commercial telemedicine specialty services is exploding—and this can be a very good thing for healthcare systems, hospitals, clinics, and other organizations facing healthcare provider shortages. But with so many telemedicine service providers out there, the challenge is narrowing down the field to the one that will best fit your organization, your community, and your patients’ needs.

School-based telemedicine should get a passing grade from administrators

By Steve Normandin on Nov 18, 2015

In addition to teaching students reading, writing and the basics of arithmetic, parents expect that school faculty and staff will keep their children safe throughout the day. That’s why the staff of your child’s elementary school includes a nurse as well as educators. But while most schools have a clinic onsite, nursing staff in educational institutions tend to be restricted in the services they’re able to provide, simply due to a lack of effective clinical technology or access to specialty healthcare providers.

Telemedicine may be on board to change all that. Between providing nurses access to other healthcare professionals via remote conferencing and letting school healthcare staff monitor students remotely when necessary, school administrators are ready to give telemedicine an A.

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