The Case

A 137-bed community hospital in the Mountain West region of the U.S. serves as a regional referral center for a large rural service area. Before partnering with Access TeleCare to complement its in-person infectious disease service line, the hospital’s infectious disease program relied on one specialist. With outpatient care demands as well as inpatient, the local specialist quickly became overloaded.

Their team needed a more sustainable model that could relieve that pressure without sacrificing clinical quality or continuity of care.

The Solution

The hospital selected Access TeleCare to provide teleInfectious Disease support in the inpatient setting, freeing up the local infectious disease specialist to focus on outpatient care.

With Access TeleCare supporting hospitalized patients, the hospital created a clearer division of labor between inpatient and outpatient infectious disease care. Referrals are now directed to the local infectious disease specialist helping preserve and strengthen outpatient access for patients who need infectious disease follow-up post-hospitalization and ongoing care and management.

With telemedicine support, the hospital redesigned how infectious disease expertise is deployed across the system. Inpatient teams gained dependable specialist support, while the organization protected the long-term value of its local physician resource.

“Access TeleCare helped us build a more sustainable infectious disease model. By supporting our inpatient consult and care management needs, the partnership reduced pressure on our local specialist, improved operational efficiency, and allowed us to preserve local outpatient infectious disease access.”

Hospital’s Chief Executive Officer