As Rural Hospitals Face Financial Pressures, Staffing Issues, and Care Access and Delivery Challenges, Acute Specialty Telemedicine Solutions are Driving Revenue, Reducing Transfers, and Improving Access to Care

Nearly 1 in 5 Americans live in rural areas, making access to high-quality, acute specialty care critical for more than 60 million people

Since 2005, more than 100 rural hospitals have closed and hundreds more are at risk

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As rural hospitals continue to face challenges like financial pressures and staffing shortages, Access TeleCare, the nation’s largest provider of acute specialty telemedicine, today shared case studies and data showing how telehealth-first models can strengthen financial stability and expand access to high-acuity care in rural communities.

Since 2004, Access TeleCare has been on a mission to improve patient lives through timely access to specialty providers through the use of tech-enabled clinical services. Acute specialty telemedicine has the power to address the most complex and challenging problems that hospitals face, providing access to world-class specialty care at the click of a button, significantly reducing the need for unnecessary transfers, keeping patients in their own communities near their families, and improving operational and financial performance.

"We are at an inflection point: despite the loss of rural hospitals, rapid advances in technology and innovation are opening new paths forward," said Chris Gallagher, M.D., founder and chief strategy officer of Access TeleCare. "And, now, we have the federal government acknowledging those realities and providing an opportunity to make large-scale investments through the Rural Health Transformation Program. It’s the hospitals and health systems that lean into those tech-forward innovations – and make data-driven decisions – that will be best positioned for long-term stability, growth, and care delivery.”

Designing the blueprint based on proven, data-backed strategies

Within hospitals, tech-forward, virtual-first programs are yielding significant efficiency improvements and cost savings. For example, by making specialists such as cardiologists or neurologists available virtually, hospitals are reducing the duration of patients’ hospital stays, wait times in emergency departments, and hospital readmissions.

They are also reducing interhospital patient transfers.

• Each year, U.S. hospitals transfer more than 5.1 million patients to another hospital, most frequently for patients with brain, heart, and lung conditions, because the original hospital does not have the requisite specialist available.
• The cost of each transfer is about $5,100.
• Reducing these transfers by having specialty care available at the original hospital via telemedicine could save the healthcare system billions of dollars annually; avoiding just half of these transfers would save more than $13 billion.

Rural hospitals are leveraging telehealth to improve access, quality and outcomes

For more than 20 years, Access TeleCare has partnered with rural hospitals to build and sustain specialty telemedicine programs that keep more patients close to home for more of their care.

• Palo Pinto General Hospital: After successfully deploying pulmonary and critical care telemedicine, the hospital, serving the rural community of Mineral Wells, Texas, expanded its service lines to include infectious disease and outpatient pulmonology. Palo Pinto reduced patient transfers by up to 40% and increased its ICU average daily Census by 30%.
• CarolinaEast Medical Center: Like many U.S. health systems, patient demand for neurology and behavioral health (BH) services were exceeding CarolinaEast’s resources. Without scalable solutions, the hospital risked delays in care, frequent patient transfers, and mounting pressure on its emergency department. The addition of teleNeurology and virtual behavioral health changed the trajectory of care delivery and the hospital’s financial sustainability. Today, there are more than 3,600+ combined annual virtual encounters and 500+ discharges supported by timely BH care that enables patients to safely return home.
• Hendrick Health: To accelerate stroke response across its health system, Hendrick partnered with Access TeleCare to implement a streamlined, systemwide teleNeurology program. By standardizing protocols and ensuring specialist access for suspected stroke patients, Hendrick Health reduced door-to-needle times and transfers, increased teleNeurology consults, and improved outcomes for patients and their families.

“The Rural Health Transformation Program is a once-in-a-generation investment in rural healthcare,” said Joshua DeTillio, chief executive officer of Access TeleCare. “Hospitals have an unprecedented opportunity to expand their services, care for more patients, and build a solid foundation for financial stability and operational longevity. At Access TeleCare, we have done just that for more than 20 years and we are proud to stand as rural hospitals’ reliable, proven partner in achieving the ambitious, but essential goals, laid out in the Rural Health Transformation Program.”

About Access TeleCare

Access TeleCare is the national leader in acute specialty telemedicine, having launched more than 2,600 telemedicine programs and partnered with 1 in 5 U.S. hospitals across all 50 states. As a pioneer in tech-enabled virtual care for the last 20+ years, the company has grown to now deliver care in more than 1 million patient encounters annually across multiple specialty service lines, including behavioral health, neurology, hospitalist medicine, pulmonary and critical care, maternal-fetal medicine, infectious disease, cardiology, and nephrology. The virtual care provided by Access TeleCare is crucial in ensuring timely and high-quality healthcare coverage across a geographic area that represents more than 65% of the U.S. population, approximately 216 million Americans, many of whom live in medically underserved, vulnerable, or rural areas. As the first and longest-standing telemedicine organization to receive The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval in 2006, Access TeleCare is leading the way to a better healthcare delivery system with clinically excellent tech-enabled services. Learn more at AccessTeleCare.com.