Two converging trends

When you step back and look at long-term trends in medicine, some things seem obvious. The use of telemedicine to better serve pediatric patients with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is such a case.

While mental restlessness has been a part of human behavior throughout history, it is only in recent decades that medical professionals have discerned a treatable difference between individuals who sometimes have trouble focusing and others, including many children, who have the disorder known as ADHD.

Let’s Talk about Excellence!

At Prime Care Family Practice of Prince George, Virginia, things were going well. Having worked with eClinicalWorks since 2012, the practice had an excellent healthcare IT partner. Providers were seeing 600 patients each week. The phones were busy.

But early in 2016, Dr. Amar Shah recognized a serious deficiency in his Patient Engagement strategy: It was all about the telephone.

Telephones are great, but if they are the primary or sole method patients use to reach their providers, access to healthcare can suffer, along with patient satisfaction.

Like many rural areas in the U.S., Pecos, New Mexico and environs has two tales to tell. One is of breathtaking natural beauty, where hiking, biking, and sightseeing unfold against a backdrop as beautiful as any in the nation. The other is a story of hardworking people who sometimes struggle with issues of health, insurance, and access to quality care.

When it comes to making quality healthcare available to any community, what’s the first challenge? Access.

After all, the best medical services in the world are of no value unless patients can make use of them. And even when a doctor/patient relationship has been established, the doctors and patients sometimes need help staying in touch and making best use of available resources.

That’s where a tool such as Patient Portal can make a critical difference.

The spirit of 1996 lives on

If you want to understand the role that Petaluma Health Center plays in California’s Sonoma County, it helps to understand what took place in 1996.