Telemedicine technology is key to projecting healthcare expertise into rural areas. In a March article on medical electronics, I described how Avaya has applied its Scopia teleconferencing to facilitate emergency patient care in rural Germany.
Many United States communities face similar needs. David Pittman in Politico writes, “In poor and rural areas, many of them in deep-red Trump Country, the school nurse is not just handing out Band-Aids anymore; she’s become a de facto medical guide, marshaling medical care for poor kids with obesity, asthma, and diabetes, while on the lookout for issues like child abuse and teen pregnancy.”
He quotes Kelli Marie Garber, who runs a growing school-based telemedicine program in Charleston, SC, as saying, “In many of our situations…the school nurse is the only health care provider a child ever sees.”
Pittman notes that congressional budget analysts aren’t convinced of telemedicine’s effectiveness for treating adults, and Medicare and private insurers often won’t pay for doctors to use remote technology to treat older patients. However, he writes, “Many states have been rapidly expanding telemedicine-in-the-schools programs, which generally serve parts of the country where the uninsured are plentiful, health problems are grave, and school-based medical care is vital to children.”
He continues, “Nearly half the country’s Medicaid programs now pay for school-based telemedicine visits—six have added the service just in the last year, according to the American Telemedicine Association. States are becoming more comfortable with allowing doctors to treat patients they’ve never laid a stethoscope on in person.”
Republicans in particular like telemedicine, Pittman reports, with Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price having called it an “exciting innovation.” However, continues Pittman, “…the 26% cut to Medicaid planned by the administration and Congress for the next decade would deplete the funds that dozens of states are drawing on to make public schools a place of healing for schoolkids.”
