Rural hospitals are teaming up to provide specialty care to patients via a new telehealth program.
Telehealth provider Eagle Telemedicine on Tuesday launched the Eagle Rural Care Alliance, in which hospitals share the cost of physicians who provide outpatient endocrinology, nephrology and rheumatology services virtually. Nine critical access hospitals in Kansas are part of the alliance, which plans to expand to 28 rural hospitals this year, said Jason Povio, CEO of Eagle Telemedicine.
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The organization, which contracts with more than 430 physicians in 17 different specialties, is talking with hospitals in Colorado, Washington, Nebraska and North Dakota, Povio said. The alliance has potential to keep more care in rural communities, improve participating hospitals' finances and reduce patients’ travel times, he said.
“No one facility could aggregate enough specialties or hours of care within a specialty to make specialty care an economically viable model,” Povio said. “This model minimizes the expense exposure to any individual facility.”
Independently, rural hospitals may not have the money or patient volume to support specialty care. As a result, rural hospitals must frequently transfer patients with complex conditions.
Rural hospitals are increasingly turning to joint ventures and clinical affiliations to reduce costs, maintain and add services, boost care quality and improve their standing with commercial insurers.
”[The alliance] significantly reduces the need for extensive travel for care, making healthcare services more accessible to rural populations,” Amie Powell, chief operations officer and clinic administrator at Goodland (Kansas) Regional Medical Center and Rawlins County (Kansas) Health Center, said in a news release.
