Participating practices include: Blue Mountain Urology, Haywood Family Practice – Canton, Haywood Surgical Associates, Haywood Women’s Medical Center, Mountain Medical Associates, Mountain Pediatric Group, Mountain Spine Care, Pulmonary Specialist of WNC, Waynesville Family Practice, Western Carolina Cardiology and Western Carolina Orthopaedic Specialists.
“We are pleased to offer convenient telemedicine solutions to help connect patients and providers, and ensure the continued delivery of high quality care,” shared Beth Edwards, director of physician practices at HRMC. “As the situation with COVID-19 continues to evolve, telehealth capabilities enable our clinical team to practice social distancing to further reduce the spread of illness while still meeting our patients’ health needs. We look forward to the many ways this new offering will further advance our mission of Making Communities Healthier.”
For patients who meet certain clinical criteria, HRMC physician practices are offering two types of telehealth visits: telephonic and televideo. A telephonic visit is simply a patient phone call with a provider, and a televideo visit is a virtual, face-to-face visit with a provider using a video conferencing service. Virtual visits may not be available in all cases and will be evaluated based on a patient’s specific clinical needs.
Patients can request a telehealth visit by calling their provider’s office, just as they would for an in-person visit. The provider will determine if a telehealth visit is appropriate based on the patient’s health condition. If the virtual visit is deemed clinically appropriate, the patient will be given an appointment time and instructions for the best way to connect given the available platforms. Then, instead of coming to the office, they would call back at the scheduled time and be “checked in” by a nurse or office manager, and then transferred to the provider for the call or two-way video.
A few restrictions on telephonic visits may apply, including that they cannot be utilized to treat patients for a condition that the patient has been seen for in the previous seven days, and they cannot be used to treat a condition that the patient is already coming in for within the next 24 hours.
Patients who are concerned they may be experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 are encouraged to consider telemedicine appointments to help further reduce the spread of respiratory illness. Leveraging telemedicine also conserves personal protective equipment (PPE) and other clinical resources that are needed when treating a patient with suspected COVID-19 in the clinic or hospital setting.
For more information about Haywood Regional Medical Center and COVID-19 preparedness, visit MyHaywoodRegional.com. Visit HaywoodMedicalGroup.com for practices and contact information.