Officials at the Louis A. Johnson Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Clarksburg, W. Va., plan to add at least six other VA medical centers in the region to telehealth programs that they recently established, the Charleston Gazette reports.
The six telehealth programs that the hospital offers link specialists at the hospital with patients at VA medical centers as far as 100 miles away in Pennsylvania.
The programs provide services related to:
- Dermatology;
- Mental health care;
- Pathology; and
- Retinal exams.
Among other services, physicians at the Clarksburg hospital can review measurements of blood pressure, blood sugar and weight of patients living in nearby states, with the help of devices that the patients use to submit the data through landlines or cell phones.
Benefits of Programs
Ron Sandreth -- operations manager for the Clarksburg VA medical center's community and rural health program -- said the six telehealth programs help VA hospitals and clinics ensure that staff or specialists are always available to patients regardless of their location.
Sandreth said that wait times for patients are greatly reduced and that patients are less likely to need follow-up care if they have timely access to a health care provider.
The programs have helped to reduce the time that patients spend in a hospital from about 108 days to 42 days, and the number of emergency department visits from 190 to 150 (Nett, Charleston Gazette, 7/17).