There is nothing futuristic about telehealth, the use of technology to connect patients to doctors without an office visit.

Telehealth is flourishing and growing rapidly in Nebraska, Iowa and nationwide. It uses long-standing technology such as videoconferencing and telephones as well as emerging devices that enable patients to track and deliver their own heart rates and blood sugar levels.

“This is like the tsunami. So much is happening. Technology is changing really rapidly. Legislation is changing,” said Mandi Constantine, who was hired 15 months ago as executive director of telehealth for the Nebraska Medical Center to hasten the hospital's efforts.

Doctors and hospitals are finding many purposes for telehealth and numerous ways to implement it. The Nebraska Med Center alone has at least 13 new test projects or initiatives in telehealth, ranging from stroke exams to cancer care.
 

The technology allows frail patients to have psychiatric appointments in their nursing homes and women enduring high-risk pregnancies to be seen by specialists without having to drive 100 miles or more. It holds the promise to restore, in a sense, the long-vanished doctor's home visit. Telehealth has special value in vast rural states such as Nebraska and Iowa, where specialists can be thinly distributed. It can reduce costly visits to the emergency room and hospital admissions.

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By Rick Ruggles / Wolrd-Herald staff writer