Grant Will Help Link Rural Hospitals To Spokane More Than $1 Million Tabbed To Expand Telemedicine Project
National grants of more than $1 million will help link rural hospitals to Spokane’s high-tech health care.
The money will help Eastern Washington hospitals hook up with TeleHEALTH, a joint telemedicine project that Spokane hospitals set up earlier this year.
Telemedicine combines powerful computer technology and telephone lines. It allows health-care workers in a rural hospital to see a well-known lecturer in another city. It also means that specialists in a larger city can help rural doctors diagnose patients.
Doctors in different cities can review the same lab tests and X-rays on TV monitors. They can look at skin lesions. Psychiatrists in Spokane can treat patients in Colville - without anyone driving a long distance.
“It eliminates the distance barrier and allows our physicians to feel more connected and less isolated,” said Tom Martin, chief executive officer of the Lincoln County Public Hospital, the hospital picked as administrator for the grants.
Earlier this year, the Inland Northwest TeleHEALTH Services network connected Sacred Heart Medical Center, Deaconess Medical Center, Holy Family Hospital, Valley Hospital and Medical Center and St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Institute.
Hospitals in Moses Lake, Republic and Odessa were then added.
Now, five more hospitals will join the network.
One three-year grant - $892,300 from the federal office of Rural Health Policy - will help hook up Lincoln Hospital, Odessa Memorial Hospital, Whitman Hospital and Medical Center, Lake Chelan Community Hospital and Shriners Hospital for Children.
The emergency rooms at Sacred Heart and Deaconess will be linked to the emergency rooms at the rural hospitals.
“The patient can even be seen on camera, and the injury can be observed,” Martin said.
This grant is special, helping to resolve one major barrier in telemedicine. The money can be used to reimburse doctors for telemedicine services. Most traditional insurance plans still do not cover long-distance medicine.
The second grant - almost $150,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture - also requires the hospitals to take out a $70,000 loan.
That grant doesn’t include money for Shriners or the Spokane emergency rooms.
, DataTimes