Hancock telemedicine project takes new turn

A year ago, a Middle Georgia community that doesn’t have a hospital or a 24-hour clinic turned to a high-tech idea to try to link folks who need medical help with doctors and nurses.

Now the people who are part of the Hancock County Healthcare Access Initiative say they’re modifying the model and continue to have faith in what whiz-bang medical technology could pull off in that community.

The first idea was for ambulances to carry their own fast internet connections and a telemedince bag: a kit of fancy cameras and high-tech equipment capable of beaming video and patients’ vital signs back to hospitals or clinics.

That would mean people who had non-emergency complaints — about 68 percent of Hancock 911 callers, according to Mercer University School of Medicine — could stay at home and get advice from a doctor rather than make a pricey emergency room visit.

When the initiative launched a year ago, the Mercer University School of Medicine, Navicent Health, Putnam General Hospital and a dozen or so other organizations joined it, and elected officials endorsed it.

Early talk even included having ambulances potentially making house calls in between emergencies. The point was to increase health care access in a way that wasn’t too costly.

So far, though, ambulances haven’t turned out to be the right vehicle for that in Hancock.

“We had a lot of data on Hancock County; we didn’t have a lot of experience there. We tweaked the model to meet the needs of that county,” said Dr. Jean Sumner, a former Johnson County physician who’s now dean at Mercer’s medical school. She’s convinced of the value of telemedicine and has been working on organizing the project since before the official launch.

The new plan is for the Community Health Care Systems clinic in Sparta to literally provide the vehicle, the WiFi-enabled vehicle, that is. CHCS runs clinics in 12 Georgia counties.

Community Health Care Systems CEO Carla Belcher is excited about the change. The hours and details haven’t been finalized yet, but the plan is for her staff to be on call for telemedicine visits in Hancock County.

“We’ve already kind of tested it on a small scale, but I expect it will roll out to some of our other communities,” Belcher said. “We just have to find a way to extend access in rural areas.”

So far the kits have been useful for visits to patients who don’t have transportation or who have mobility issues, she said. Telemedicine data and video let staff in Sparta give the person what Belcher calls a “virtual exam.”

The clinic also is planning to offer existing patients, and maybe others, a number to call after hours to ask for non-emergency house calls.

Sumner said every county is different, and she expects each one might work a little differently depending on what resources the county has and which partners want to work on the project.

How many patients who have been helped via telemedicine during the past year in Hancock County wasn’t immediately available. And not all folks who have watched the project from the beginning agree on what the bumps in the road were. Some claims include technical difficulties, staff turnover, a lack of information in the community about the project or a lack of unity about what to do.

Staff from Grady EMS, which last year won the ambulance contract in Hancock County, weren’t even part of the planning or the first round of training. Grady inherited the program from the previous provider.

“There were many hurdles that couldn’t be seen at the beginning of the project,” Denise Simpson, media relations manager for Grady Health System, said in a written statement. “Officials made a decision a few months ago to revamp the program and remove the ambulance component.”

State Sen. David Lucas, D-Macon, who represents the area, has been a key driver of the initiative and takes responsibility for taking ambulances out of the loop. He said he still feels telemedicine is one of the best ways to reach rural communities. Rural communities have “got to be willing to accept the health care that can be provided to them. Because in most rural communities, they don’t have the sales tax base or the businesses to support having a hospital,” he said.

The telemedicine project in Hancock, in a way, is already having an indirect impact on the state. For one, the high-profile names attached to it help bring attention to the widespread problem of connecting rural Georgians to health care.

In response to calls from many communities such as Hancock, the state is piloting a separate program to help rural hospitals, clinics and physicians coordinate their efforts more closely. The point is to keep more hospitals from closing due to financial strain. And as of April this year, Georgia is allowing ambulances to charge Medicaid when they provide telemedicine services to low-income Georgians who use that insurance.

Sumner said she talks to people from all over the state who have heard of the program. They call to ask about how it’s going and how they might use what she’s learning.

This story was originally published September 9, 2016 at 8:54 PM with the headline "Hancock telemedicine project takes new turn."