Salt Lake City, Utah-based Intermountain Healthcare has opened a virtual hospital called Connect Care Pro, which brings together the system’s 35 telehealth programs and over 500 providers and caregivers.
The various programs span the care continuum, providing basic medical services as well as stroke evaluation, intensive care, newborn critical care and mental health services.
Because Connect Care Pro offers virtual care, it is not housed in a specific building, according to a news release.
All of Intermountain’s 22 hospitals, including 10 of its rural hospitals, use the telehealth services available through the virtual hospital. Additionally, nine facilities outside the Intermountain network have signed up to use the offering.
Kane County Hospital, a rural location in Kanab, Utah, is leveraging Connect Care Pro.
“Kanab has had one of the highest suicide rates in the state, not including patients that come to us from our border town in Arizona, and we don’t have a crisis worker here,” Charlene Kelly, the hospital’s CNO, said in a statement. “Trying to place a patient who has not had a crisis evaluation was next to impossible. With crisis care from Intermountain Healthcare, patients receive that crisis evaluation in less than an hour, and if the crisis worker recommends inpatient treatment they assist in placing the patient.”
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Going forward, Intermountain wants to offer Connect Care Pro’s services to more underserved areas. The health system is mulling over putting telehealth kiosks in places like schools, homeless shelters, community centers and jails.
Penn Medicine in Philadelphia also recently launched a new telehealth-related effort.
Its Center for Connected Care brings together the health system’s telemedicine activities, including its Penn E-lert ICU and Home Telehealth program. The facility is housed at Penn Medicine Rittenhouse and includes 50 full-time employees.
Currently, the Philadelphia health system offers telemedicine services in a variety of specialty areas, including dermatology, sleep medicine, ophthalmology, radiology and transplant services.
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