Lake Chelan Community Hospital
Lake Chelan Community Hospital (LCCH) is a fully-accredited Critical Access Hospital in North Central Washington's Lake Chelan Valley. Ten physicians and seven surgeons serve Lake Chelan Community Hospital, along with a Behavioral Care Services team composed of six caregivers, including a psychologist and two psychiatrists.
GCI ConnectMD has worked with LCCH to make great strides in several areas of tele-health, including tele-consultative psychiatry, tele-radiology, and emergency treatment. High speed connections let LCCH staff communicate live with large hospitals in urban areas, enabling patients at LCCH to reap the benefits of these larger facilities while still enjoying the individualized care of a smaller hospital.
The following examples demonstrate how GCI ConnectMD has helped LCCH transform from a once isolated rural hospital to a facility connected with medical experts across the state.
Tele-Consultative Psychiatry
Access to mental specialists in the rural areas of Washington State is difficult; a recent report determined that the state's rural areas have one third the number of psychiatrists found in larger urban areas. LCCH has a special opportunity to provide service to outlying areas in the region and to larger populations further away.
James W. Ethier, MD is a General and Addiction Psychiatrist at Lake Chelan Community Hospital; he was formally a family physician for 17 years before specializing in Psychiatry at John Hopkins University Hospital and University of Maryland Fellowship in Addiction and Psychiatry. Dr. Ethier now treats adolescents and adults in both in-patient and out-patient settings. Through computer-assisted visual presence from the hospital and out-patient facilities, Dr. Ethier would be able to provide essential psychiatric services to populations around the region.
Today, Dr. Ethier can be at either LCCH or the hospital's out-patient office in Wenatchee, where he can assess and prescribe to his patients at either facility. Additionally, these tele-health capabilities enable seasoned psychiatrists such as Dr. Ethier to share their expertise in providing psychiatric consultation with other hospitals in the region, without the need to travel.
Tele-Radiology
A patient was discharged after surgery at Children's Hospital in Seattle, to return home to Chelan. In the immediate postop period, complications developed and the patient was treated at LCCH where x-rays, labs, and other documentation were electronically routed to his surgeon at Children's Hospital for review. The primary medical physician was able to consult with the patient's surgeon for follow up. This connection allowed the patient to stay in the Chelan area and be treated by both his surgeon and his primary medical physician.
Emergency Treatment
A patient was brought into the LCCH emergency room and needed to be shipped to Harbor View due to his traumatic injuries. A LCCH employee was able to transcribe a STAT history and physical at home to be faxed online to Harbor View. The documentation was at Harbor View before the patient arrived, expediting the patient's care.
About GCI ConnectMD
ConnectMD is owned and operated by GCI (Nasdaq: GNCMA), an Alaska-based telecommunications company that has been successfully providing solutions to customers for over 25 years. The unique combination of telecommunications expertise, a focus on healthcare, and proven experience delivering medical network services, regardless of location, distinguishes ConnectMD from other health IT solutions. Currently 140 facilities are securely exchanging medical data and have access to a suite of health IT tools and services on the ConnectMD medical network.
