Balancing Growth and Coordination: Navigating Telehealth Challenges in Rural Healthcare
The explosion in the number of telehealth services has been a good thing, but we have to remain vigilant.
An ever-increasing number of people in hard-to-reach places are getting lifesaving care.
That’s been especially true for patients living in states like mine. I live in Montana.
As the telehealth sector matures it is facing challenges that are similar to those faced by traditional, brick-and-mortar healthcare organizations.
For example, someone with PTSD and alcohol addiction might have to seek care from two different specialists: one to treat the psychiatric diagnosis and another to treat the substance use disorder.
This is happening in part because organizations and their medical providers are increasingly specializing in an effort to establish a niche and a competitive advantage.
So now, our clinical teams are having to coordinate care across a rising number of providers in both virtual and in-person settings.
And, we can’t forget to ensure that primary care providers are kept in the loop. They need to know when a patient has a new diagnosis or a new medication is prescribed.
Our team at Frontier Psychiatry has been tackling these very challenges and there is no simple solution.
We have both addiction specialists and general psychiatric providers, allowing us to integrate the treatment of co-morbid conditions in one visit.
Our link to Montana’s health information exchange, aka Big Sky Care Connect, keeps information flowing between our group and primary care clinics.
In many ways, patients in rural America are lucky to be living in a time when access to care is expanding rapidly.
We will reap the benefits only if we’re mindful about how we grow telehealth.
