Massachusetts Hospital Implements Telemedicine System

Rural hospitals around the country face challenges associated with a shortage of specialists, who often flock to urban areas to ensure a sufficient patient base to support a practice. This is compounded, in the rural setting, by a lack of resources to acquire expensive tools and equipment, which often carry unwieldy price tags for small facilities.

Telemedicine is an emerging approach to address these shortfalls through collaborations with larger centers and their vast resources.

One example of a telemedicine approach was adopted by Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, as reported in the New York Times. The program is TeleStroke, a collaborative with Harvard hospitals Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s.

The program supports communication between the Vineyard facility and Harvard physicians. The collaboration doesn’t allow for imaging with the preferred modality, MRI, but relies on the diagnostic prowess of neurologists and neuroradiologists at Harvard.

This cooperationg supports rapid diagnosis of stroke patient and supports definitive treatment in a timely manner.

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