Physical Therapist Petra Pirc takes a walk with little Keisha in the hospital's central activities area. In addition to performing patient evaluations, the technology allows digitized X-rays to be stored and sent to the surgeons. Many times, Armstrong can sit in his office after a day of surgery and look at X-rays that were taken and saved on a computer hours earlier in Denver. The computer program also contains an electronic record, where each patient can have his or her own patient file containing physician notes, lab results and X-rays. For years, many Shriners Hospitals have been faced with the task of providing care to patients in such large geographic areas, and the Intermountain Hospital is no exception.
Patients often have to travel great distances to receive care at the hospital.
Expenses for patient travel are covered by the Shrine Temples, but with increasing costs associated with airfares, this has become a burden for the nine Temples supporting the Intermountain Hospital. Another problem involves the amount of time surgeons and other hospital staff spend away from the hospital at outreach clinics. We're seeing more and more patients, and the travel costs aren't getting any cheaper. Also, our staff travels to several outreach clinics, which adds to the overall cost of running the hospital. The telemedicine project is a very cost-effective way to continue to see patients from throughout our service area.