Benton cited explosion accident response as an example. “We will partner with other health and telehealth programs, including a huge trauma care program. If there was a big explosion near one of the hospitals, that’s where patients could be triaged and treated in consultation with specialists at other hospitals via telemedicine. There are only 16 burn injury beds in Arkansas, so they use telemedicine to triage treatment for these injuries,” she said.
A city or county should do a needs assessment to determine the best telehealth strategy.
For example, a hospital in Iowa recently announced they were going to stop delivering babies. The communities in that region may look to telehealth to provide prenatal care. UAMS’ telehealth services actually started before AR SAVES with providing care for women with high-risk pregnancies.
Assessment includes cost analyses.
“If someone injured their hand on a farm or in an industrial plant, they would be sent by helicopter to our hospital, we’d check them and send them home to wait for a doctor to schedule them for a visit,” said Benton.
The helicopter costs $30,000 per trip, she addded, so UAMS partnered with the Arkansas Trauma Communications Center (ATCC) to create an orthopedics hand injury program.
Communities also can view telehealth as a vehicle to impact local economies as well as provide healthcare services.
Benton and Kitchen work with others to determine what types of services enable patient to stay close to home throughout their care and recovery. AR SAVES provides a 24 hour on-call service with a stroke center neurologist. A patient can stay at the local hospital where they initially are admitted.
First Responder Vehicle Tech Enhancements Could Reduce Arkansas’ Stroke-Related Deaths