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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Dialing For Doctors New Technology Lets Doctors Reach Out And Heal Someone

Every Thursday, new doctors studying internal medicine gather at either Deaconess or Sacred Heart to listen to the morning report.

Half leave their hospital and make the trek each week, leaving a skeleton crew behind for emergencies.

But today, for the first time, the internal-medicine residents will go to class in a new way - they won’t leave either hospital.

The class will be held with the help of powerful computers and phone lines, through a new telemedicine network in the Inland Northwest.

It’s only a test class. But increasingly, it’s the direction medicine is moving.

“Pretty impressive,” said Dr. George Novan, director of the internal medicine residency program at Sacred Heart Medical Center, as he moved the computer pen around the screen.

“Start of a brave new world, huh?”

It’s a world of technology that blurs traditional hospital boundaries.

Telemedicine can link doctors and nurses in different hospitals to a lecturer in another city. The technology can also be used to diagnose patients over long distances, linking up big-city specialists with rural family doctors and patients.

North Idaho recently started its own telemedicine network, linking five rural hospitals and the North Idaho College nursing program to Kootenai Medical Center. In Montana, two networks have been running for years.

The new Inland Northwest TeleHEALTH Services network, run out of Sacred Heart, now links the four Spokane hospitals and St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Institute.

Three rural hospitals will be added by April. Six more rural hospitals will be added in the next year.

The network will cost almost $2 million, to be divided by the five Spokane centers over three years.

“It would be prohibitively expensive for one hospital to do it alone,” said Dodie Ruzicki, project coordinator for the network.

Telemedicine has the potential to educate professionals, save money for patients and insurance companies, and give rural communities access to top-level care.

But there are problems: Insurance companies rarely pay for telemedicine consultations. It’s uncertain who would be held liable in a malpractice lawsuit. Specialists in Washington need medical licenses in Idaho to consult with Idaho patients.

The Inland Northwest network is in the early stages. An area telemedicine conference is planned for March 19. Experts are training people to use the computers and trying to convert technophobes.

“It’s two-way audio, two-way video,” said Randall Benson, the coordinator for teleconferencing for Empire Health Services, which owns Deaconess and Valley hospitals. “It’s just like sitting in the same room. It is instantaneous.”

The monitors have a slight lag, making the person on TV look a little jerky. But it’s more than a TV screen. X-rays, slides and tests can be transmitted. A camera can take pictures of whatever’s on screen, and the computer can save them.

A doctor on one end can circle a tumor on an X-ray while a doctor on the other end jots notes on the picture. A doctor could place a stethoscope on a patient, and a specialist 100 miles away could listen to the heartbeat.

The Inland Northwest network has two monitors each in Deaconess and Sacred Heart and one monitor each in Holy Family Hospital, Valley Hospital and Medical Center and St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Institute.

Ferry County Memorial Hospital in Republic, Othello Community Hospital and Samaritan Health Systems in Moses Lake will get portable monitors in the next two months.

Nationwide, many communities are testing the technology limits.

A monitor at the Indianapolis 500 track hooks up to a nearby hospital, allowing doctors to see patients quickly from fiery crashes. Georgia and Texas prisons use telemedicine to help diagnose inmates so they don’t have to leave prison.

Locally, experts are starting small and thinking big.

A patient in Republic could be seen by a dermatologist in Spokane without ever leaving town. A rheumatologist in Coeur d’Alene could see a patient’s wrist move from 100 miles away.

“This is so new,” said Nancy McIntyre, administrator for Ferry County Memorial. “We’re only in the very beginning steps of what’s going to be available to us out there.”

, DataTimes