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Telemedicine clinic going the distance
Published August 10, 2006
ANGLETON — Going to a doctor’s office can spark many different emotions, including worry, hope or panic, but Trina Whitaker called her visit to this clinic strange.
“I’m used to someone examining me,” said Whitaker, an Angleton resident, “but he has someone to do that, so it’s OK.”
Inside the small examining room at the Brazoria County Health Department, Whitaker sat in front of a television screen with a small camera sitting on top. Although only a few feet separated Whitaker from her doctor’s image, in actuality he was miles away.
The doctor diagnosing her ailments worked from the University of Texas Medical Center in Galveston.
Using the hands of UTMB employees at the Angleton clinic, Dr. George Brooks is able to treat patients thanks to technology. Dermascopes enable him to see wounds up close on a television screen and certain stethoscopes are capable of allowing him to hear heartbeats.
It’s called telemedicine, and the program has been offered to the county’s indigent care patients at the Brazoria County Health Department in Angleton for about six years. The clinic, which is run by UTMB in Galveston, allows patients to meet with doctors over closed-circuit television sets rather than drive to Galveston.
Brooks believes the popularity of telemedicine will grow, perhaps becoming available in people’s homes or in kiosks, he said.
“It’s like teleconferencing,” he said.
Clinical facilitator Joe Carranza Jr. has been trained to be Brooks’ hands in Angleton. Key to the service is having electronic medical records, Brooks said.
A nurse, nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant are presenters, introducing patients and their ailments to their UTMB providers via a microphone and camera.
“He can listen to your breathing sounds from Galveston. He can hear your heartbeat,” said Carranza, who also is a paramedic.
Given a choice between telemedicine and meeting with doctors face-to-face in the same room, Whitaker said “it really doesn’t make a difference. They’ll both do the same thing.”
On average, the clinic sees about 80-100 patients a month in the indigent care setting, Carranza said.
Of the patients served through the telemedicine program, Terry Gallup said she knows of only three who didn’t prefer telemedicine based on surveys given. Gallup, who has worked as a UTMB hospital technical assistant at the Angleton clinic for four years, said the telemedicine clinic stays busy.
“A lot of people have expressed how grateful they are,” Gallup said. Yet she believes not many people know about telemedicine.
The clinic is open two days a week. Gallup and co-worker Karen Villanueva, who also works as a hospital technical assistant for UTMB, triage patients before they see the doctor.
Villanueva calls the program “a doc in a box.”
“We try to provide the best possible care for our patients,” Gallup said.
Commissioners recently approved an agreement with UTMB for continued telemedicine services.
At one point, the county offered such services at two clinics, including one in Alvin, but after the agency lending space for the service, Alvin Community Health Endeavor, needed room to grow, the Alvin telemedicine clinic closed, said Jim Wiginton, head of the civil division of the Brazoria County District Attorney’s Office.
County officials anticipate reopening the Alvin facility at a new location in the 1000 block of South Hood, Wiginton said.
An opening date hasn’t been set, but the new space is ready to go, said Dr. Leo O’Gorman, director for the county’s health department.
“I think it’s a great thing and Dr. Brooks has convinced us,” O’Gorman said of the telemedicine services.
Telemedicine is used not only for the county’s indigent population, but also at prisons, O’Gorman said.
Doctors based in Galveston are capable of seeing and working with patients through several television screens at various sites. O’Gorman compared the telemedicine facility in Galveston to a television studio, given its abundance in technology.
Velda Hunter is the senior reporter for The Facts. Contact her at (979) 849-8581.
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