Madison Memorial to use telemedicine service to help patients - East Idaho News
Rexburg

Madison Memorial to use telemedicine service to help patients

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REXBURG — A new service coming to Madison Memorial Hospital is expected to be a boost for patients.

“We are excited to partner with Intermountain Healthcare in this advanced telemedicine service to provide an extra layer of clinical support to our nurses, physicians and most importantly, our patients,” Kevin McEwan, chief nursing officer at Madison Memorial, said in a news release.

Beginning on Oct. 1, Madison Memorial will join the Telehealth Adult Critical Care Program.

TeleCritical Care was developed to help Intermountain Healthcare’s rural hospitals retain patients and increase their ability help patients who need more attention, according to a news release.

After five years and countless patient interactions, Intermountain’s clinical service is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by a team of physicians, advanced practice clinicians and nurses.

When patients enter Madison Memorial’s Intensive Care Unit, providers can instantly communicate with Intermountain Healthcare experts via videoconferencing to talk about the patient’s condition and determine the best course of treatment.

Madison Memorial spokesman Doug McBride said as a mid-sized hospital (69-bed facility), this instantaneous collaboration will be beneficial for the hospital’s patients.

“We’ve got very capable and very knowledgable physicians and health care workers here, but there are those cases that they become a little bit more intense, and they need a little bit more collaboration and understanding about how to care for certain issues,” he said.

TeleCritical Care plays a role in ensuring that established best practices are applied reliably across the ICU population, according to Intermountain Healthcare’s website. That’s something McBride says is important to note.

“That’s what we’re finding: so much benefit in the health care industry when these physicians and these specialists can interact with each other,” McBride said. “It gives you a whole network of knowledge.”

The agreement between the two organizations does not change ownership, local control and governance, or restrict patient choice in providers, according to the news release.

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