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It looked like a bad case of shingles. At least that’s what the doctor working at a hospital in rural Virginia thought when he examined a patient who had come in. Still, he wanted to be sure. So he arranged to consult with a dermatologist.
But the specialist was not just down the hall, or even in an office across town. He was hundreds of miles away at the University of Virginia. The consultation would occur over the Internet, with the dermatologist doing a virtual examination of the woman’s damaged skin.
It turned out it wasn’t shingles. The doctor on the other end of the video connection recognized the condition as something much more serious — a flesh-eating strep infection. Immediate, aggressive treatment with surgery and antibiotics was necessary and the woman recovered.
That’s a dramatic example, but one that reflects a trend that’s beginning to transform rural health care in America: the use of telemedicine to compensate for the dwindling supply of doctors in rural communities.
Examining and diagnosing patients remotely is a long, long way from the iconic, hands-on country doctor. But it appears to be the future model for treating those living where stoplights — and specialists — are few and far between. And it is especially needed for rural older adults whose transportation options may already be limited by their inability to drive and lack of public transit.