When hospitals think about transferring patients, it’s usually about patients needing outbound transfer to a higher-level facility to have their specialty needs met. But, some hospitals are thinking about their capacity to accept inbound transfers from other hospitals in the region and turning to telemedicine to help them do that.
Hot Springs, Arkansas-based National Park Medical Center is a 163-bed hospital serving not just Hot Springs but other communities in and around Garland County as well, including hospitals in those areas.
“We serve Hot Springs proper, of course, but we also serve as a hospital that takes referrals from outside hospitals,” explains Casey Willis, chief operating officer, National Park Medical Center. “If we don’t have the ability to provide a certain service here, that’s detrimental to the patients in our primary and secondary service areas.”
Meeting the needs of those hospitals and their patients in the secondary service areas was one of the reasons the hospital partners with Access TeleCare for teleNeurology services. The hospital was having difficulties recruiting a local neurologist, and having 24/7 access to a teleNeurology pod of specialists was a perfect solution.
“We want to be able to accept those transfers from the smaller facilities that don’t have [neurology],” added Willis.
Watch the video to learn more about the Access TeleCare teleNeurology partnership with National Park Medical Center.
