The South Carolina Telehealth Alliance is a collaboration of many healthcare organizations working to expand Telehealth across the state.

Since 2014, the SCTA has organized efforts through a statewide strategic plan which allows SCTA members across the state to work collaboratively to expand Telehealth programs, and to align Telehealth, education, broadband, and internet infrastructure and advocacy and awareness efforts.

In 2021, the SCTA launched a new strategic plan format focused on grouping Telehealth services by the value they bring to the state.

In this new series, we will dive into each strategic bucket a little deeper and take a look at the impact these Telehealth programs have brought to South Carolina, ♪ Every community hospital in our state will have access to Telehealth Partnerships that enhance its services and its finances.

These services represent partnerships that extend care and resources between hospitals using Telehealth, from larger, urban hospitals to community hospitals throughout the state.

The services should have sustainable business models and a strong case for the benefit to the referring community hospital.

>> Well, the hospital support services are a lot of where we started.

The intent of formulating the strategy arm for hospital support in the way it is, is to focus on, not that the services don't provide great benefit to the patient or value all across the board, but the real purpose is to make sure that we assist a partner hospital in being successful in caring for their patients.

That means financially successful, so they stay open.

And it also means that we sort of right size the care.

Maybe a small hospital can't have every specialist, but they should get the ones they need or the right sort of dose of specialists to help them.

So the idea is that we're supporting those hospitals.

>> So pairing them up with a larger urban facility or a larger healthcare system, to make sure that they have the infrastructure and that they have what they need to be able to provide Telehealth to their communities is a focus.

James >> It's specifically in service, in partnership with a community hospital, with services being provided at a distance.

So an example of that might be a consultative program where if you have an infectious disease where the hospitalist might request a consult from a distant infectious disease provider.

We need to enable that platform and that approach to allow them to review the medical records of the patients, see what antibiotics they're on, potentially see the patient and make some recommendations.

The way that that's designed is to make sure that it fits in with what the hospital needs, and they might not need an infectious disease 24/7, whereas a stroke specialist, they might need 24/7.

Or another example is a Tele-ICU monitoring program.

That's very different.

It's not a scheduled or consult.

It's 24/7.

They work with the local bedside team to monitor a patient that's in the ICU.

And a third example that's a bit different is perhaps a Tele-sitter program, we might say, where they monitor patients that are in a bed and a fall risk, and instead of having someone sitting right next to the bed to make sure they're okay, the video feed will monitor them.

If they try to get out of the bed that person can talk and alert the local team to help make sure the patient stays safe.

So those are different types of services, different modalities, but they are all helping that hospital deliver care and staying focused on the idea that it's in benefit and a partnership of the local hospital.

♪ >> Marion is a county that's certainly considered rural and so some of the specialists we're not able to provide on-staff full time, and palliative care is one of those specialties.

>> Palliative care focuses on relief of suffering and to improve the quality of the patient's life.

Now hospice care does the same thing.

However, the difference is palliative care can be introduced as a part of the patient care from the start of their disease process, once they get a diagnosis.

Hospice care tends to be at the last six months of their life.

Linda>> It's a specialty that's needed, but we don't have a doctor on staff.

So this service that Charleston has, if we tap into their program through Telehealth, it will allow us to afford that service an entire population of patients that we wouldn't otherwise be able to treat.

>> We're able to provide the provider that's not actually here, and via the Telehealth, able to see the patients in this area who need our help, who we don't want to travel to Charleston, because we want them to stay here in their homes with their families.

James >> What's really important in particular, in our state, one, to make sure that we get as much care as we can, and make sure that specialty advised care and the highest level of care is delivered to any patient, no matter where they live and where they're admitted.

But it's also important to make sure that our hospital stay open.

Local hospitals are the way it should be but it's really hard.

If you don't have enough business, you don't have enough specialists, don't have enough doctors that sometimes keep your local community hospital open.

So we need to design these services so that they benefit the hospital, help keep patients locally as much as possible.

So what we've seen with stroke in neurology services, as an example, is as much as 85% of patients that are seen, can stay at the local hospital.

So that's really important that we're using all our resources right, we're transferring a patient when they need to be, but not when they don't need to be.

You know, local care is always a lower cost.

You come to a bigger academic center, you do have more resources, but sometimes you don't need all there and then, you know, it charges the health system more and more money when you could have stayed and benefited your local community by being well cared for there.

which is some advice from, say, the mothership, and so it's important to get it right to keep our hospitals open and to make sure that everyone receives the same level of advised care, no matter where you are.

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