It’s the last game of the season. The floodlights turn on – illuminating the crisp autumn sky and revealing the compact emerald turf. As you sit on the locker room bench, you hear the other high school students stamping their feet on the metal bleachers in anticipation. You stand up and rush through the tunnel, the nervous euphoria that was in your stomach now an all-encompassing focus on the game.

The whistle blows, you get the ball, your opponent comes directly for you. You shimmy to the left. They saw it coming. BAM! You’re on the ground. Waves of pain circulate from your thumb. Your coach tells you to wrap it. Later, when you take the bandage off, your thumb is more swollen than it had been before. The minute you see the doctor in the emergency room, they look at it and ask why you wrapped up your hand for a broken bone.

The doctor was able to determine how to treat the injury in seconds by simply looking at the hand. If the coach had access to a telehealth solution, a doctor could have determined what to do quickly and accurately. Utilizing telehealth for sports is just one application for this increasingly useful technology.

How do you provide care to underserved patients who have difficulty getting to the office? This was the challenge we were trying to solve at The Clark Clinic. Some of our patients don’t have access to a vehicle or are physically restricted and unable to travel far. But, as most of our community is underserved, we needed to collectively identify a solution to ensure we can serve all our patients.

Telemedicine is transforming healthcare by making optimal use of healthcare resources. By providing an in-office experience remotely, healow TeleVisits lets providers deliver the same high-quality medicine while letting patients experience the comfort and convenience of being at home or on the road. Not every medical encounter requires a physical office visit, and TeleVisits are ideal for pre-op consultations, quick post-op checkups, and many routine encounters. Secure and fully integrated into the eClinicalWorks EHR, TeleVisits are making care easier and more efficient.

The thousands of eClinicalWorks customers who came to Nashville this weekend expected to hear about improvements to the core EHR, see some new products and services, renew friendships, and have some fun.

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.