Telemedicine Corridor Rapidly Growing

The Northern Arizona Telemedicine Corridor served by the University of Arizona’s Arizona Telemedicine Program (ATP) is now referred to as a “National Model of a Telehealth Ecosystem.” Through the years, telemedicine growth has rapidly occurred in northern Arizona along a 340 mile long corridor surrounding Interstate 40 between Arizona’s borders with New Mexico and California.

“The Northern Arizona Telemedicine Corridor fulfills our highest expectations of what we could achieve via telemedicine when we started the ATP in 1996” said, Ronald S. Weinstein MD, the ATP’s Founding Director. “Not only have these organizations established a telehealth ecosystem but they are national models of healthcare excellence in their own right.”

ATP is a large multidisciplinary university-based program providing telemedicine services, distance learning, informatics training, and telemedicine technology assessment capabilities to communities throughout the state. As the sixth largest state in the U.S. in square miles, the program has created partnerships among a wide variety of not-for-profit, and profit healthcare organizations.

Through ATP, the Arizona Diabetes Virtual Center of Excellence (ADVICE) program, a comprehensive program for diabetes prevention, assessment, and management using the ATP network was established. Today, ADVICE uses a mobile health program to educate and read retinal images using the non-mydriatic camera and also uses a special camera to offer podiatry exams.

Each ATP program is continuing to provide critically needed services. For example, Northern Arizona Healthcare’s Flagstaff Medical Center is rapidly moving forward with their telemedicine program by collaborating with the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale. The telemedicine program provides critical teleburn services through the Arizona Burn Center at Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix. Another Mayo Clinic telemedicine service provides remote teleneurology services for nearly 1,000 patients in Flagstaff.

The ATP at the University of Arizona, College of Medicine in Tucson, with funding through HRSA’s Office for the Advancement of Telehealth has expanded the Southwest Telehealth Resource Center (SWTRC). The ATP/SWTRC’s help desk responded to more than 1,500 requests for services last year with many requests handled on an urgent basis.

On the legislative side, the Arizona bill “Telemedicine Reimbursement Parity Act” (S 1353) sponsored by State Senator Gail Griffin and signed by Governor Jan Brewer, requires telemedicine services to be covered by health insurance in rural areas of Arizona.