When GCI and its customers first started working together in the telehealth space 20 years ago, many people considered telehealth a “nice to have” rather than a necessity. For Alaska, it’s always been a necessity. Today, with a global pandemic pushing more and more patients to seek alternatives to in-person care, the sentiment has largely flipped: telehealth is an absolute must, and as a nation we need to consider telehealth as an essential part of primary care.
In fact, in rural Alaska and other remote regions, telehealth is often a critical part of healthcare delivery within a community. As Alaskans, we continue to work together to overcome the challenges associated with providing care to patients in remote locations and harsh environments, and we continue to strive to be the leader in telehealth in the United States.
Over the past months, telehealth has been the focal point of many conversations within the industry. On August 13, I moderated a panel at Cablefax’s Telehealth in the Virtual Age event. Titled “Telehealth Opportunities for Rural Broadband,” the panel featured representatives from two of Alaska’s telehealth providers: Ward Hinger, CEO, Imaging Associates and Stewart Ferguson, Chief Information Officer (CIO), Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC). We discussed the drivers of telehealth and how we see it evolving today and in years to come. The following is an overview of the conversation we shared on the panel.
“Find a telecommunications and technology partner that takes the time to understand your business, listen to your needs and craft solutions to meet them. That’s one of the things I love about GCI.”
Ward Hinger, CEO, Imaging Associates
Pam Lloyd: What are the drivers that create the environment for telehealth?
Ward Hinger: All the drivers for telehealth you see in the lower 48 naturally exist and are magnified in Alaska because of the geography and the distribution of the population. Those drivers include extreme remoteness, lack of access to primary and specialty care within the community, and the high cost of traveling outside of the community to access care.
Stewart Ferguson: I would add that the distribution of physicians in relation to patients is also a major driver of telehealth adoption and usage. In the United States, Alaska is 48th in the doctor to patient ratio. Almost half of our doctors are primary care physicians, as opposed to 26% in the lower 48, so we have fewer specialists and poor distribution throughout the state. On top of that, travel is expensive. Many of our communities are not connected to a road system and are only accessible by boat or by air. In Alaska, the average resident travels 147 miles to reach the next level of care.
PL: How do you see the future of telehealth changing?
WH: I see the biggest opportunity for change (present and future) stemming from tools and technologies. Today, we use high-resolution imaging technology to help identify internal ailments and avoid having to do exploratory surgery, as used to be the standard. Technology can help us avoid invasive procedures while also enabling real-time consults, quick turnaround times and ultimately faster diagnoses.
SF: I’ve been working in telehealth for 23 years, and in that time the boundaries on the field have blurred and limitations have fallen. For example, due to federal regulations and coverage by insurance providers, telehealth used to only be delivered to clinic facilities. Now, with the COVID-19 pandemic driving greater demand and need for telehealth, regulations are changing, so we can use video conferencing technology to deliver telehealth services to a patient’s home.
PL: What are your thoughts on the direct-to-patient model and patient monitoring?
SF: At ANTHC, we will continue to expand our capability to offer telehealth directly to patients. It’s truly working, and patients are very happy with this. So, we are adopting newer technologies to make this work better, and we are building workflows and support to expand our efforts. We are also interested in expanding into Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM). RPM is often used to monitor chronically ill patients, requiring an investment in technology in the home and services to patients to help them manage disease better. We have seen RPM reduce visits to clinics and facilities by 60% to 70%, and we could bring that model to Alaska. It’s expensive for small health organization to do this themselves, so we’re interested in exploring what it would mean to provide that scalability for the consortium of healthcare organizations we work with today.
PL: What advice do you have for network providers or vendors in this space?
WH: Find a telecommunications and technology partner that takes the time to understand your business, listen to your needs and craft solutions to meet them. That’s one of the things I love about GCI. They sat down with us and helped figure out real-time collaboration for teleradiology, which has been invaluable.
SF: I agree with Ward 100% and would add the simple fact that healthcare cannot be done today without connectivity. Network providers and other vendors need to understand that 100% of modern healthcare uses connectivity, not just the 3% that constitutes telehealth. Modern healthcare is virtually impossible without high-speed Internet. A great example of this is electronic health records (EHRs). To be able to access this data, we need high uptime and high quality of service, as well as redundancy with immediate failover. So, when a provider or vendor is thinking about working in the health space, they need to think about these use cases.
With healthcare increasingly happening at a distance, finding ways to forge lasting partnerships within the industry and reach patients effectively is more critical than ever before. We at GCI are excited to continue expanding telehealth access in Alaska and working with leaders in the field, such as ANTHC and Imaging Associates. Thank you to Stewart and Ward for participating in the panel and sharing their expertise!