The University of Mississippi Medical Center www.umc.edu (UMMC) now offers patients with Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia access to medical specialists using telehealth technology.
A partnership has developed between UMMC’s Center for Telehealth www.umc.edu/telehealth offering 30 different specialties and UMMC’s MIND Center is providing an outpatient Alzheimer’s telehealth program called TeleMIND to bring specialized dementia care services to patients across the state through secure audiovisual technology.
“TeleMIND is being implemented in stages around the state”, said Dr Kristi Henderson, UMMC’s Chief Telehealth and Innovation Officer. TeleMIND allows patients to visit a clinic in their vicinity so that they can be examined via live audio and video by a UMMC physician in Jackson Mississippi. At the remote location, the patient is put in a room with a healthcare professional trained to help facilitate the virtual exam.
According to Dr. Henderson, “Since we have the only geriatricians specially trained in Alzheimer’s and dementia, some of the most complicated and vulnerable patients in the state are travelling long distances to see them. That’s very disorienting and stressful for the patient, and often results in missed appointments because it’s such a challenge.”
She further explains, “While telehealth doesn’t replace in-person care, it definitely does minimize the need for frequent in-person care. It allows us to limit in-person visits to the times when we absolutely need to see the patient for diagnostic tests, surgery, or X-rays.”
Also, telehealth does allow many exams that are usually conducted in-person to be administered via audio and visual streaming. This include neurological exams which are needed to assess the status of a patient with Alzheimer’s.
Last year, the USDA Rural Development’s Distance Learning and Telemedicine www.rd.usda.gov program provided funding for $378,365. The funding helped to initiate UMMC’s “Telemedicine Emergency and Specialty Care Program” where patients in rural areas in Mississippi now have access to emergency and specialty medical care 24/7 on a real-time and unscheduled basis to treat heart attacks, strokes, or traumatic injuries.