The Southern Illinois University School of Medicine has long been the heart of
healthcare in the central Illinois region, and now thanks to über-modern medicine, it’s circulating lifelines to hospitals in every corner of the state.
Since 2001, SIU has synchronized its videoconference system with 149 clinics and
hospitals. The school’s staff facilitates the transmission of 46 weekly meetings and unites 90
physicians and staff from internal medicine, neurology, psychiatry and
pediatric departments in two-way teaching conferences broadcast to 58
locations.
As SIU’s “telehealth” network took off, Deborah Seale, the program’s executive director, explains, staff ensured that the innovative technology was
stable.
“That was the first thing — make sure the bus is running before you load it up,” she says.
Seale’s staff started working with hospital personnel in administrative and
educational programs. Human resource directors from various state hospitals
came together to discuss how to retain and attract employees in their areas.
Medical directors brainstormed quality improvement initiatives and nurses
shared ideas for staff training or educational opportunities.
“It’s the kind of thing that we do all the time, but we get together in a building
somewhere,” Seale says. “Now we can do it from a distance.”
One of the SIU telehealth’s biggest priorities has become connecting medical professionals in rural
hospitals with their colleagues in Springfield. Before telehealth, doctors in
central and southern Illinois were isolated, Seale says; they can now use the
videoconference system to develop work and support groups. Fifty hospitals in
the Illinois Critical Access Hospital Network have signed up for the program
and meet from locations such as Salem, Mt. Carmel and Illiopolis.
After mastering the videoconference technology, staff expanded the telehealth
program to include clinical care. SIU began with “teledermatology,” but now offers “telepsychiatry” and “teleneurology.”
The medicine school’s doctors developed a partnership with the Illinois Division of Developmental
Disabilities in the Department of Human Services and began conducting clinical
evaluations last month with patients at the Jacksonville and Murray
Developmental Centers. A neurologist or psychiatrist at SIU works with an
interdisciplinary team that includes a primary care physician and nurse, as
well as a psychiatrist, psychologist and pharmacist, at the participating
clinic to develop treatment plans for patients.
Seale says telehealth doesn’t compete with local healthcare systems, but connects and strengthens them by
providing additional resources. Program administrators can think about
telemedicine in two ways, she explains: Are they using technology to bring the
patient to Springfield, or are they using technology to take the Springfield
doctor to the patient?
“Our philosophy is that we’re taking the doc [to the patient],” Seale says. “We are a guest in your community. We are a resource. We are your contract
employee.”
Seale wants to see the SIU telehealth program further develop its neurology
program by focusing on stroke patients. Staff would also like to include
pediatrics in clinical care.
“You can tell we’re going for those sub-specialties where there are huge shortages,” Seale says. “Neurology — there might be one downstate. There are two child psychiatrists downstate.
Period.”
This article appears in Mar 19-25, 2009.
