.jpg;w=960)
BARRHEAD - Barrhead Healthcare Centre has an additional tool in its toolbox when it lacks sufficient physicians to staff its emergency departments (ED).
Barrhead is one of five communities chosen to participate in a pilot program that leverages technology to connect emergency room doctors with nurses and other medical staff in rural hospitals, enabling them to diagnose and treat patients in their EDs.
The other communities are Hinton, Edson, Lac La Biche, and Beaverlodge.
Dr. Jane Ojedokun, a medical director with Alberta Health Services (AHS), said the pilot Virtual Emergency Physician program launched in January.
"In the last two or three years, there have been several ED closures across the zone in rural communities because they did not have an on-site physician."
Ojedokun added that the shortage of ED doctors is not just an Alberta issue, but is something that jurisdictions across the country are experiencing.
"Rural B.C., Ontario and most, if not all, the other provinces that we've talked to [when looking to find potential solutions] have started to use some kind of virtual care in their emergency rooms," she said.
Ojedokun said that while there are several different criteria for hospitals to meet to be accepted into the pilot program, including prerequisite staff training and Internet connectivity, the need for how many times a community's emergency department was forced to close and for how long, was at the top of the list, and known physician shortages top the list.
The program is activated when a physical physician isn't available to staff an emergency room.
"It is a last resort at all our sites. Our goal is to have a physician on site because we know that you cannot assess and treat everything [remotely]," she said.
According to Ojedokun, the program works by linking off-site emergency room physicians to nurses at the hospitals via laptops and tablets using Collect Care.
"[There] I can access information on all my patients. I have x-rays, bloodwork, view patients' histories and can communicate with nurses almost in real-time," she said.
Similarly, doctors can use the same system to order tests and give instructions to nurses. Patients connect to the physician via tablets.
As the system has limitations, the Virtual Emergency Physician program limits the patients seen to what Ojedokun calls "primary care sensitive" issues and less emergent.
For patients who need a higher level of care, she said, they utilize the Online Medical Control (OLMC) EMS crews to manage higher "accuity patients."
In the initial few months, Ojedokun said the Virtual Emergency Physician program has been successful, admitting that, depending on the site, they have limited data to draw on, adding that it was only recently that they had to use it in Barrhead.
Between 5 p.m. on Aug. 5 and 7 a.m. on Aug. 6, the Barrhead Healthcare Centre activated the program for the first time. Over that time, the emergency department saw 17 patients.
"There is still some fine-tuning to do," she said, adding that overall everything worked as intended. "Those are 17 people who would have had to go elsewhere for treatment."
Ojedokun said they would take what they learned, both good and bad, to improve the service not only in Barrhead but also at the other healthcare centres, noting that they had already incorporated much of what they had learned at the other sites, some of which had activated the program multiple times.
She stated that the Virtual Emergency Physician program has been utilized multiple times in Hinton.
However, Ojedokun reiterated the initiative is intended only to be a stopgap measure until a community can find enough doctors to fill the role.
Once they do, the community or healthcare centre is no longer in the program, as was the case most recently with Elk Point.
Currently, she said, AHS is actively trying to recruit a family doctor with emergency.
"They are reviewing CVs of eligible candidates and interviewing them right now, so I don't believe Barrhead will be in the program long, but it is available to any site that is experiencing a service disruption, as long as they meet our criteria for technology and staff and physician training," Ojedokun said.
The initial pilot was scheduled to run from January to June, but Ojedokun stated that the deadline had been extended until AHS determined its effectiveness.
Ojedokun said the final report is expected to be released in September, and it has enough funding to run until December.
She added that once AHS reviews the program's results, which she believes will be favourable, she hopes that the Virtual Emergency Physician program or a variation will remain available.
"So they can have it in their toolbox for the next time they need it."
Barry Kerton, TownandCountryToday.com
