Healthcare IT in Small Towns and Remote Areas

“We have the technologies necessary to meet these work-flow requirements. Why aren’t we seeing better solutions on the market? I implore all industry solution vendors to work together to figure this out. If we don’t, some government bureaucracy will do it for us and I guarantee that not one of us, technologists or clinicians, will be very happy with what we get.” (MSDN HealthBlog)

We talked yesterday about the fact that many people simply don’t believe healthcare IT can offer much in the way of innovation and improvement. They don’t see any need for change in the field. It’s all but invisible to them, unless they need a service that can’t be provided due to the lack of effective healthcare IT. Better solutions are out there but they simply aren’t being used. This has become all too clear in remote and rural facilities where IT faces extra challenges in implementation, management, and monitoring.

“Transforming fragmented systems in states such as West Virginia presents an even greater challenge. West Virginia is the second most rural state, has the second oldest population, and has one of the highest levels of chronic disease and unhealthy behaviors in the nation. Many parts of the state have been designated as medically underserved and/or health shortage areas due to a lack of health care providers. In light of these challenges, there is a great need to use technology and systems change together to improve access to care and to improve the health status of those living in rural areas.” (Most Wired)

By extrapolating the West Virginia problem, you get a clear picture of what’s going on in remote facilities all over the country. Whether it’s a rural community or a satellite clinic “attached” to a large hospital, remote locations offer their own challenges. It’s seldom cost-effective to have dedicated IT personnel on site, and occasionally dispatching personnel to remote locations can be time consuming and costly as well. As a result, IT assets generally aren’t monitored as closely as those in centralized facilities. This, of course, leads to more problems, as faltering hardware goes unnoticed for longer periods of time.

Rural facilities highlight some of the greatest opportunities, and the greatest need, for innovative healthcare IT. These small facilities are vital to general community health and tend to be less bureaucratic than larger institutions. However, cost still remains a major obstacle when it comes to procuring new technology:

“Rural hospitals’ smaller size, community connections and ability to initiate rapid change can help put community facilities at the forefront of the quality and consumer-driven healthcare movements. But one huge hurdle remains: access to capital.” (Doc Advocate)

Every facility has to meet its own specific needs and operate within its own budget, and centralized computing obviously isn’t an option for every remote or rural clinic. However, centralized computing provides solutions to a number of the problems many remote facilities face. It allows for around-the-clock monitoring, fast and easy maintenance, and greater flexibility. It eliminates the need to dispatch IT personnel when there’s a problem with hardware, ensuring lower costs and higher levels of uptime. At the very least, it illustrates the fact that there are answers to some of the questions being raised about healthcare IT.