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Click to learn more about what Telehealth means for the physician.
Benefits to Hospitals
Rural Hospital Revenue - Retain ER patients that would have been referred or transferred for lack of available physician specialists
 
Urban Hospital Revenue - Add new patients from remote locations; support ER "fast tracking" to avoid turning away patients
 
Access - Provides access to full array of physician specilaits
 
Quality - More timely access to appropriate physician specilaists
 
Documentation - Integrated EMR; real-time electronic/visual records can improve the defense of the physician's actions
 
Other potential benefits include helping affiliated physicians to increase revenue; helping with physician recruitment; patient education; supporting employer physicals/workers compensation injuries; offering distance learning opportunities to community physicians; site-to-site videoconferencing; use for remote triage and treatment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rural Hospitals
are challenged with lower census/revenue as physicians refer patients to larger urban hospitals. Patients by-pass them and low intensity care means low revenue per patient per day. The root cause of these problems is a lack of access to specialists. Rural healthcare organizations have historically struggled to attract and keep such qualified providers since it is difficult to financially sustain a viable specialist practice in a rural setting; an issue compounded by a lack of access to on-going education and peer relationships.

DTN's telehealth solution offers the opportunity to address these challenges by providing immediate access to physician specialists hundreds or thousands of miles away, without any travel involved. Our established physician specialist network includes specialists recommended by primary care doctors to replicate existing referring patterns (Tier 1) and specialists from academic medical centers and medical groups (Tier 2).

A Telehealth End Point (TEP), or mobile "exam room", that includes a moveable color video camera used in conjunction with selected digital medical equipment peripherals, is set up at each site with a direct link to specialty physicians. It enables physicians located in larger urban areas to diagnose many types of medical conditions without the need to transport the patient. It also allows local caregivers to give urgent care quickly.

In addition, DTN reduces the isolation of rural health care professionals and provides increased opportunity for continuing education. This helps rural health organizations and healthcare professionals to acquire the knowledge and tools to improve quality of care.

Urban Hospitals
are larger and constantly challenged to maintain or increase admissions for the specialty services that they provide. By employing a DTN telehealth solution urban hospitals can expand referrals from rural hospitals as well as long-term care facilities, community clinics, and correctional facilities.

Additionally, the DTN telehealth solution supports treatment of lower acuity patients triaged to a separate "fast track" within the Emergency Room (ER) by less costly physician extenders such as nurse practitioners and physician assistants in conjunction with an off-site (e.g. at home during the weekend) physician. This not only reduces the wait time for non-urgent patients, and avoids them potentially walking out, it more importantly avoids overcrowding that can cause ambulances carrying patients requiring urgent care to be diverted; either case represents a loss of revenue for the hospital.

With a DTN solution urban hospitals can also provide much needed education to rural hospitals. This benefits the rural community and creates additional revenue opportunities for the urban hospital.

As a low cost solution DTN allows both rural and larger urban hospitals to reap the benefits of telehealth without any financial barrier to entry. If you would like to explore this opportunity in more detail please call us at 949-553-0887 or even Request a Telehealth Assessment.

ATA - American Telemedicine AssociationTIE - Telemedicine Information Exchange