4 ways technology solutions reduce staff shortages in rural healthcare

3. Connecting rural doctors to a larger community of specialists

Jennings noted that technology solutions enable providers to “share information with the right people who can intervene with the patient at the right time.” She gives the example of a stroke patient who receives care at a rural outpatient clinic run by a general practitioner.

Instead of calling another hospital with a specialized stroke team and waiting for an operator on the doctor’s page, Jennings explains, “physicians can use the CC&C platform to connect immediately with a stroke specialist at a large facility. ”

Thanks to telehealth technology, that specialist can give a visual assessment and provide advice to onsite providers while the patient is being prepared for transport. Telehealth also gives the stroke patient the opportunity to make remote follow-up appointments.

“Traditionally, patients would be limited to the resources available within that one hospital or clinic,” Jennings says. “Rural healthcare providers are not on their own. Because of virtual care, we’ve really been able to bring down those walls that block access.”

Read more: Learn three benefits of clinical workflow solutions for rural healthcare.

4. Limited funding will not burden independent hospitals

“People have to think creatively about how they can pool resources in these rural environments,” explains Lahr. She says there are viable options for smaller organizations with limited budgets.

She envisions, for example, five 25-bed hospitals partnering to take advantage of the tech tools. Lahr describes this type of arrangement as advantageous because “some of these tools require some amount of scale to make their ROI.”

Another option may come from the tech companies themselves. Lahr says she could envision telehealth and AI companies, for example, collaborating to offer interoperability between their services, giving rural hospitals the best of both solutions.

“We have more people to care for who are sick, and we have fewer staff to care for them,” explains Jennings. “It’s a great opportunity to see how things like automation, AI, virtual sitting, telehealth and CC&C are enabling you to maximize your workforce.”

Lehar says “technology solutions” allow people living in rural communities to receive more advanced care closer to home. She says she is excited to see how AI can be used to advance healthcare in the future. “Providing a specialized level of knowledge and decision support through AI tools to primary care physicians who prepare to provide care to communities in these environments, I think, is going to be really cool to see.”