Network provides link to care, education

By Ilene Davis

Business Today

When patients in Southeast Missouri require medical services not available in their communities, they are often forced to travel to larger metropolitan areas for care. Technology breakthroughs providing high-quality video and computer links, however, are allowing many health care facilities to send patient information, not the patients, to faraway clinics and hospitals.

University of Missouri Health Care in Columbia, Mo., is the central location of the Missouri Telehealth Network (MTN), which provides medical aid and extended education through the use of high-speed, high-quality video assistance to participating sites.

MTN began in 1994 as the first public-private telehealth partnership in the nation. It developed with federal support from the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Office of Rural Health Policy, as well as private support from telecommunication companies. The network began with only nine sites and has grown to well over 100.

According to network director Rachel Mutrux, the MTN has four main objectives.

The first objective is to provide high quality specialized care to rural and under-served communities through the use of telemedicine. The second is to be available for bioterrorism and disaster preparedness and response. The third objective is to provide continuing medical education for physicians in rural and under-served communities.

And finally, the network is designed to provide information to other health care institutions interested in joining.

Telehealth differs from telemedicine, which is the clinical side of medicine. The former focuses on the distribution of medical information, including education and preparedness.

Currently the MTN has roughly 145 sites in 43 Missouri counties plus the city of St. Louis, and offers almost 30 medical specialties, says Mutrux. Southeast Missouri counties with participating clinics or hospitals include Cape Girardeau, Scott, Butler, Stoddard, New Madrid, Dunklin and Reynolds.

The most often utilized specialty is psychology, with dermatology at a close second.

There is a shortage of psychological treatment, especially in rural America, and that makes it is a good use of MTN because an evaluation does not require a hands on visit and more people can benefit, Mutrux said. Within the Missouri Telehealth Network, approximately 70 percent of clinical work is psychological care.

Dermatology is another popular telehealth specialty because a high quality digital photo can be taken of the problem area, then transferred on a high speed Internet line to the physician who is able to study the photo while talking to the patient, she explains.

“The Missouri Telehealth Network is a state-funded, University-ran entity that provides us with a private network, so telehealth doesn’t run on the public Internet,†says Mutrux.

The MTN uses a semiprivate network to deliver two-way interactive audio and video information for clinical encounters, and data transfer for teleradiology and other store and forward services.

The Missouri Delta Medical Center of Sikeston, Mo., is a part of the MTN. According to Sharon Urhan, director of marketing, the facility uses a lot of the education tools provided by the MTN, such as training several of the medical students.

“The doctors do a lot of seminars. The medical students sit in, sometimes the physicians sit in too,†she says.

Urhan and Mutrux both agree the Sikeston facility uses the MTN dermatology specialty the most.

In Cape Girardeau County, Cross Trails Medical Clinic is in the MTN. Mutrux says the clinic mainly uses the network to provide their physicians with continuing medical education, as well as use it for administrative services.

They also use it for clinical specialty care. For example, “if they have a patient that needs to see somebody for an infectious disease case and they have no one to refer to locally, they can call up to Columbia and get a consult, generally the same day,†Mutrux explains.

Chrissy Warren, chief operating officer at Cross Trails, says they work well with the MU and with the physicians there.

“So far we’ve used it mainly for dermatology,†she says. The clinic hopes to utilize the education programs even more in the future.

Mutrux says she sees a growing popularity and demand for telehealth because the technology is cheaper, better, and easier to use than in the past. Patients and physicians are finding out about telehealth and are asking from both sides to use the network.

Last year, 50 percent of the consultations done by the MTN were for the Medicaid patients. That number is impressive because the service includes medical transportation for those receiving the aid. It is more expensive for them to drive to Columbia than to utilize telehealth, says Mutrux.

Currently the MTN is concentrating on their genetics and autism clinics.

Sometimes children with autism have a hard time being transported, explains Mutrux. The video conferencing eliminates the travel factor.

“It’s a much better solution,†she says.

On the web: http://telehealth.muhealth.org