AUGUSTA, Ga. (WJBF)- Rural hospitals across Georgia often struggle to survive, facing challenges of providing specialized care to patients.
Wellstar is working to change that through its Wellstar Digital Care Network.
About 70% of patients in the Wellstar Digital Care Network remain at a nearby hospital for treatment. This is a huge increase from when the care network started in 2019, only 30% of the patients remained in their local hospital at that time.
“You don’t have that specialist care in your rural community. So you have to transfer or you have to drive or be transferred in an ambulance so that the specialists can actually see you in person. With digital, we’re able to beam that doctor into your room, and then that way, most of the time, they can handle that just by giving advice to that rural doctor,” said Dr. Matt Lyon, Director of MCG’s Center for Digital Health.
Wellstar is currently working with 19 hospitals and so far they were able to see decrease in patient transfers to different hospitals. That means patients will be closer to their families.
“Emmanuel Medical Center is a great example of that. We’re able to keep more patients in Swainsboro, decreased transfers down to Statesboro or to Augusta. And you know, what that means is the patients can get care, right, in their home community, which means that there’s less of a delay in seeking emergency care,” said Dr. Lyon.
In 2018, Candler County Hospital, in Metter, Georgia, was on the hospital closure list.
Thanks to the digital care network, it helped increase the number of patients in their hospital and made it financially viable to look into expanding.
Photojournalist: Dania Alawir
