Patients at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center in Bennington can now take advantage of the hospital's new telemedicine program, enabling patients to undergo a consultation with specialists at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H., according to a Brattleboro Reformer report.
Rheumatologists at Dartmouth-Hitchcock are caring for a handful of SVMC patients through the D-H Center for Telehealth. Daniel Albert, MD, is one of those physicians. While he offers telehealth visits, he also travels to SVMC twice a month to see patients in person, according to the report. "I think this hybrid model of me going to Bennington intermittently and doing telemedicine intermittently is absolutely the right model," Dr. Albert said in the report.
Dr. Albert's approach to telemedicine falls closer in line with the AMA's proposed telemedicine guidelines, which argue telemedicine should be utilized a supplement, not a replacement, to traditional healthcare service models.
However, Dr. Albert did say in the report early 80 percent of telemedicine patients can effectively manage their disease through video consultations. "During their telemedicine visits, some patients will get labs, some will get X-rays and some patients will be prescribed med[ications]," he said in the report."It runs the gamut of what we do in person. Exactly the same options are available to them as a telemedicine patient as an in-person patient."
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