Telehealth Services
Starr Regional Medical Center provides access to physicians and specialists through telehealth services to ensure patients receive the best possible care, close to home, when they need it.
Vital healthcare services are provided promptly through video conferencing, remote monitoring, and electronic consultations and communications, eliminating the need for patients to be transferred to facilities far from their homes to receive the care they need. An additional benefit to patients is that family members do not have to travel long distances to visit or be involved in making important healthcare decisions.
Starr Regional Medical Center has implemented tele-intensive care unit (tele-ICU) services, as well as telenephrology, teleneurology, telepsychiatry and telestroke services, to allow patients to receive specialized care close to home.
Our Services
Telenephrology & Dialysis Care
Patients with chronic kidney disease and other health conditions requiring dialysis and specialized care from a nephrologist, who require hospital admission, receive treatment they need closer to home through telenephrology services. Hospital medicine providers and nephrologists work together seamlessly to create an individualized treatment plan for effective, high quality patient care. Additionally, patients receive care in the hospital from nurses trained in providing inpatient dialysis and specialty care required by patients with renal conditions and disease.
Telestroke & Teleneurology
Patients who arrive in the Emergency Department with signs and symptoms of a stroke have access to neurology specialists through our telestroke program. A specialist evaluates the patient’s status through video conferencing and remote monitoring to provide a diagnosis and documentation for hospital admission or transfer for further care.
Patients who are admitted to Starr Regional Medical Center for acute stroke or other neurological conditions receive specialized care through teleneurology. This service provides direct access to neuro-hospitalists who are experts in treating urgent and routine neurology conditions. Care is provided using similar telehealth methods, including video conferencing, remote monitoring, and electronic consultations and communications.
Telepsychiatry
Starr Regional Medical Center's Emergency Departments (ED) provide timely crisis management and healthcare decisions to patients with symptoms of addiction, psychiatric episodes and suicidal ideation through telepsychiatry services. Psychiatrists evaluate patients through video conferencing and provide documentation for ED staff to appropriately transfer patients to psychiatric facilities or a lower level of care and provide treatment plans that allow other patients to be safely discharged home. Telepsychiatry services provide immediate access to mental health professionals 24-hours-a day.
Now Available: Tele-intensivist Care
This service connects SRMC’s on-site ICU and Emergency Department teams with board-certified critical care physicians (intensivists) through a secure telehealth platform. This platform is operated by Equum Medical, a leader in virtual critical care services, in collaboration with Caregility, a global provider of connected care and AI-driven solutions. The tele-ICU initiative provides critically ill patients with expert, around-the-clock care without needing to leave McMinn County.
Patients with complex situations no longer require transfer to a regional facility, far from family and friends, to receive the expert care they need. Tele-intensivists assess patients and create an individualized care plan that is communicated via video conferencing to, and carried out by, the on-site team of clinical staff. Tele-intensivists work alongside care team members around the clock to monitor patients and support critical care services. Medical studies* of tele-intensivist care have proven patients who receive these services have better outcomes, including shorter hospital stays, reduced use of mechanical ventilation and lower risk of death.
