The Arizona Telemedicine Program Blog

The American Telemedicine Association’s annual trade show is touted as “the world’s largest” for telemedicine, telehealth and mhealth products and services.

For Janet Major, it’s like a trip to Disneyland.

“There’s just always a lot of really cool stuff: new trends, the latest and the greatest, last year’s latest and greatest upgraded to make it even better,” says Major, the Arizona Telemedicine Program’s associate director for facilities. “So yes, for me it absolutely is like going to Disneyland.”

During the fall of 2011, I was selected to participate in the civic leader fellowship program put on by the Flinn-Brown Foundation. Not having aspirations for political office, I channeled my knowledge of healthcare with my passion for telehealth and jumped in headlong to fulfill the requirements of the program.

Each graduating fellow was charged with the responsibility to develop a common good project that served the citizens of Arizona. Each graduate was also assigned a mentor to help us on our journey. My mentor, Bob Smoldt, is the Chief Administrative Officer Emeritus for Mayo Clinic, Director of the ASU Healthcare Delivery and Policy Program and a great guy.

During initial meeting, I pitched Bob on different ideas that would improve healthcare delivery using telehealth technology. We reviewed existing barriers and quickly realized that to have the biggest impact, we needed a louder single-voice and some additional support. Bob solicited the help of Deni Cortese, Chief Executive Officer and President of Mayo Clinic, and Natalie Landman, PhD Associate Director for Projects at the ASU Healthcare Delivery and Policy Program (HCDPP).

Collectively, we decided to produce a barrier mitigation telemedicine white paper.

Despite the Affordable Care Act’s rocky roll-out last October, more than 7 million Americans have signed on for health-care coverage through the Act as of March 31. Another 3 million have enrolled in state Medicaid plans, largely due to a provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that subsidizes states’ expansions of Medicaid eligibility.

A major concern accompanying implementation of the ACA is the demand these millions of newly insured will place on the nation’s already inadequate physician supply.

But an article in the March 2014 issue of The American Journal of Medicine notes that advances in telemedicine, telehealth and mHealth (mobile health) services can help compensate for the physician shortage while meeting the ACA’s goal for increased health-care efficiency.

An ICU nurse at North Colorado Medical Center in Greeley checked in on one of her patients. He was on a ventilator and his vital signs all looked fine. But the nurse had a feeling something was wrong. She contacted the Banner doctor who also was monitoring the patient from more than 800 miles away.

Telemedicine is burgeoning in northern Arizona, thanks largely to three Flagstaff-based telemedicine programs. All three programs are not-for-profit, bringing services to medically underserved areas and populations throughout the five counties of northern Arizona. All three programs have won acclaim for their telemedicine programs. And all three have collaborative, innovative leaders.