Eric Wallace M.D., Nephrologist and Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) provides full checkups to dialysis patients in their home from hundreds of miles away by using a high definition handheld examination camera from UAB www.uab.edu.
He can also listen to the heart and lungs with his Bluetooth-enabled stethoscope while a nurse at the home of the patient draws blood to be shipped to a central lab for testing. Dr. Wallace began the first dialysis telehealth visits in March 2016. Currently, thirteen patients from seven different counties are enrolled in the study with a targeted enrollment of 40.
These telehealth visits are part of a pilot study funded by Baxter Healthcare Corp www.baxter.com, enabling the UAB School of Medicine http://uamedicine.org to partner with the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) www.adph.org. UAB Health System CEO, Will Ferniany said, “The partnership study will show how big an impact telehealth could have in Alabama with the right nurturing.”
Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Alabama www.bcbsal.org began to reimburse for telehealth specifically for cardiologic and dermatologic conditions, infectious disease, behavioral health, and neurologic diseases, including stroke.
In February 2015, ADPH deployed four telehealth carts with Medical AIDS Outreach. These carts are used to see clients at six county health department telehealth facilities. Currently, there are ten telehealth-ready ADPH county health department sites in Alabama with fifteen more scheduled to come online before the end of 2016.
“We want our county health departments to be a neutral point of entry so patients can come into our facilities and receive services via telehealth facilitated by our nurse and social work staff with specialists around the state,” said Michael Smith Director of Telemedicine for the ADPH.