The pressures on rural hospitals are certainly immense, and their financial vulnerabilities are significant. But telemedicine can help. Telemedicine isn’t a panacea, but it can be an effective treatment for what ails rural health care.
Chris Gallagher, M.D., CEO of Access TeleCare discusses specialty telemedicine as a resource for rural hospitals in an article published by the American Telemedicine Association:
“The pressures on rural hospitals are certainly immense, and their financial vulnerabilities are significant. But telemedicine can help. Telemedicine isn’t a panacea, but it can be an effective treatment for what ails rural health care.
How Telemedicine Can Help Rural Hospitals
Specialty telemedicine done right can give rural hospitals an almost immediate tool to retain more patients, reduce transfers, increase case mix index, decrease length of stay, strengthen patient loyalty, enhance clinician satisfaction and recruitment, and deliver high-quality outcomes.
The result is that rural hospitals can not only keep their doors open, but they can also truly compete with larger tertiary facilities, expand their services, serve more patients, maintain services that typically lose money, such as labor and delivery, and ultimately more meaningfully contribute to their community’s vitality and economic well-being.
Make Access TeleCare Your Telemedicine Partner
My team has partnered with (and I choose the phrase “partner with” purposefully) a rural hospital in East Texas for almost a decade to help solve challenges that afflict nearly all rural hospitals: patient outmigration to larger urban hospitals, inability to recruit specialty physicians, clinician burnout, and financial losses.” Read more about the Access TeleCare process.
Learn more about how specialty telemedicine enhances care at rural hospitals here.
