Telemedicine Links Meadowview Health Clinic With University Of Virginia Specialists

MEADOWVIEW, Va. – The Meadowview Health Clinic and Community Center announced Tuesday that it will be the latest of more than 50 Southwest Virginia health care providers to offer a telemedicine link with the University of Virginia.

The link allows patients to videoconference with specialists in Charlottesville without leaving the clinic.

“There was a time in the not-too-distant past when the people of this region who needed a level of specialty care that was beyond the ability of local physicians … they would’ve had to take a very long and expensive trip,” said U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher, who announced Tuesday that a $227,613 federal grant was provided for the project. “Now … with the telemedicine links … around our region, it is no longer necessary for them to make the trip.”

Boucher called the network “a new era” for medical care in the region – and said the connection local should be up and running by the end of the year.

“This effort here in telemedicine is part of a broader effort within the region that continues to expand our telemedicine opportunities,” said David Cattell-Gordon, director of rural network development for telemedicine for UVA.

Karen Rheuban, medical director of the university’s office of telemedicine, said UVA’s telemedicine network, which started in 1996, has been built slowly over the years with the help of federal, state and private grants.

She said the grants announced Tuesday will include funding for a digital mammography van that will bring health screenings to women in remote mountain communities.

Howard Chapman, executive director of the Southwest Virginia Community Health Systems, which runs this and five other clinics in the region, said the telemedicine link also can be used for health education.

“Almost as much as 50 percent of the rural population reads at a sixth-grade level or below,” Howard said. “However, most health-education information is written at an 11th-grade level or higher.”

He said in addition to consultation with medical specialists, the link can provide community clinic patients a very basic service: an explanation of difficult medical information in terms the average person can understand.

Since its opening last year, Meadowview’s community clinic has treated more than 1,800 patients.

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