Adena Health System, Chillicothe, Ohio, USA
Serving the residents of a 10-county region in rural Ohio, Adena Health System is a nonprofit health system which includes the Adena Regional Medical Center and several small regional sites. Established in 1895, Adena has developed into a full-service, multi-specialty facility serving more than 500,000 people in South Central Ohio.
While Adena Health System is able to provide excellent care for infants and new mothers in the hospital's neonatal care facility, access to critical care specialists is limited. In these special cases, doctors were forced to transfer at-risk infants to the region's larger facility, Nationwide Children's Hospital, located nearly 70 miles away in Columbus, Ohio. In fact, Adena transferred more newborns to Nationwide than any other facility in the area. Not only were these transfers time-consuming and stressful for the infants and their families, the financial burden was significant - nearly $10,000 per transfer. Adena needed a technology solution that would give them access to the right specialists at the right time.
In 2005, the Ohio Supercomputer (OSC), a state organization that provides high performance computing and networking infrastructure to Ohio universities and industries, received a federally funded grant aimed at supporting medical collaboration and online sharing of expensive scientific equipment. OSC partnered with Adena Health System in Chillicothe and Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus to provide dedicated, high-speed fiber-optic network connectivity along with LifeSize® Room™ HD video systems. And with the Cisco® Catalyst™ switches already in place at Adena, plus powerful network, security and wireless solutions, implementing video on their network was simple and painless.
"There hasn't really been a need for IT or technical assistance with the LifeSize systems," said Marcus Bost, CIO of Adena Health System. "Our physicians really own it - they support it, they make the calls. Lucky for us, all the pieces work together seamlessly, making it a win-win situation for our patients and physicians."
Since the implementation, LifeSize has helped Adena dramatically improve neonatal care by enabling the experts to be in the right place at the right time. In its first year of utilization, the number of newborns transferred from Adena to Children's Hospital was cut in half from 140 to 70 newborns. Adena physicians now make 5 Mbps calls to Columbus anytime a need arises. Every tiny finger and toe, every cough can be observed remotely, in crisp, crystal clear HD.
Digital lab tests and imaging films are also shared between locations and doctors are able to consult with one another as if they were all standing in the same room. "It's incredible," Bost continued. "The clarity is so good, our doctors can actually read the physician's notes on the wall and see through to the exam area and into the nursery down the hallway with no problem. LifeSize has really raised the bar."
As for the future, Bost says that HD video is rapidly gaining acceptance in the region. In fact, the new PACCAR Medical Education Center, located on the Adena campus, offers nursing students a degree through Wright State and Ohio Universities. Many of the courses are offered through remote video lectures where classrooms mirror classrooms.
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