Piggott Health System
Securing specialty care in a commitment to their community and investing in the right care closer to home.
When rural hospitals implement telemedicine, many take incremental steps into service lines based on community needs and strategic opportunities. In Piggott, Arkansas, the team experienced the power of telemedicine during COVID, and after experiencing a positive response from patients, physicians, and nurses, they plotted a course for additional service lines in a commitment to their community.
The Future of Rural Health Care
is in Northeast Arkansas
For some small-town hospitals, access to specialists has become a new standard where the community has realized the value of a telemedicine investment.
For Piggott Health System, a 25-bed critical access hospital located in rural northeast Arkansas, telemedicine changes what is possible for hospital operations, patients, and the broader community. Access TeleCare helped the Piggott team shape how rural access to specialty care heightens trust in the local care team and the hospital’s reputation.
Telemedicine allows rural hospitals like Piggott Health System to transform the community’s expectations, and other hospitals across the country are embracing telemedicine and accelerating new ideas of value in small market health care.
James Magee
Executive Director Piggott Health System
“At one time the hospital was viewed as more of a waystation with patients coming to our emergency room just to be transferred to another facility. But now with telemedicine, we’ve improved the care we offer and we’re able to keep more patients here.”
JT DeWitt, D.O. Chief Medical Officer Piggott Health System
“Seeing the Access TeleCare cart and the doctor talking to the patient and then consulting our team was something we had not seen before, but quickly adapted to and really liked. They can do physical exams, review labs, and make clinical decisions all through telemedicine.”
Brittnay Mossman, APRN Hospitalist
Piggott Health System
“Before telemedicine, if a patient was having difficulty breathing or was septic, your mind was almost made up that they would need to be transferred. With telemedicine we have the resources available to care for our patients at the most critical time.”
Local Specialty Care in Rural Markets
Piggott Health System prides itself in serving the entire community with reliable, high-quality providers locally to ensure convenient access to services without leaving the area. For patients and their families, the long drive to Little Rock or other large urban areas in Missouri is more than an inconvenience. It impacts care and satisfaction.
Changing Reputation. Becoming More than a Waystation for the Community.
Piggott Health System changed the perception of its capabilities in the eyes of its community when it enabled its existing team with specialty care resources through telemedicine.
