Senior care goes hi-tech

Donna Sergisson waits to see her doctor — not from the waiting room at his office, but from the comfort of her own home, the Wayne County Nursing Home and Rehab Center.

“I don’t have to get up early and get everything together to get to the appointment,” the wheelchair-bound resident said. “It’s amazing what they can do now with technology.”

Sergisson is one of about 25 residents at the nursing home in Lyons who visit doctors electronically through new, state-of-the-art telehealth services. It’s only one of four of its kind across the state.


High-tech health care
In the past, when a resident needed to go to the doctor’s office, a staff member would book an appointment and arrange for transportation. On the day of the appointment, staff and patient would get ready, wait for the transportation to arrive, go to the doctor’s office, check in and wait to see the doctor. After the appointment, they’d wait for transportation to take them back to the nursing home.

Learning that a handful of nursing homes in the Albany and Buffalo areas were using videoconference equipment to have residents meet with physicians, it was a service nursing home officials said they wished they could offer their residents.

“We explored our options and got quotes,” said Assistant Administrator Cathie Chabrier, who managed the two-year project. “We thought it was too expensive for us.

But after looking into grant options, they realized it might just be possible after all.
With $13,000 from the Bullis Fund of the Rochester Area Community Foundation, sharing services with Rochester General Hospital for a nurse practitioner and a $5,000 specialized camera provided free from Pro Connections on a trial basis, high-tech health care became a reality.

The equipment consists of a server, high-definition, flat-screen television, stand, microphone and laptop. The nursing home staff and participating physicians dial into the system at appointment time and within a split second, doctors in Rochester and New York City — with a view of Central Park — are talking live to their patients, who never had to leave their home.

Right now, treatment, which is done on referral from a primary physician, is offered in geriatrics, plastics for wound care and nephrology out of Rochester General Hospital. Before telehealth, patients would be transported 10 miles to and from Newark-Wayne Community Hospital in Newark, an affiliate of RGH, to teleconference with their doctors.

It was a transportation cost of $65 to $130 — even higher if the appointment required a trip to a Rochester-area hospital.

“The primary advantages are that residents don’t have to travel for an hour each way and they can get the specialty services that are not available locally,” said Marge Haroff, the nursing home’s administrator.

The nursing home has also teamed up with R.G. Psychology Services in New York City, which provides both psychology and psychiatry services.

As the program grows, the nursing home intends to offer more health-care services through teleconference.

Going to see the virtual doctor, Chabrier said, is much the same as going to an actual doctor’s visit — without the waiting and transportation time.

And, there’s been an up-side.

“In the short time, we have been providing telehealth, we have also seen the unexpected benefit of having our nurse interacting directly with the specialist,” Chabrier. “Previously, the nurse relied on a written report and the aide who went with the patient to the appointment. This will certainly improve the quality of care.”
The doctor also has access the nursing home’s electronic record system to type in his assessment, progress and notes, as well as review other doctors’ and caregivers’ comments, look at patient history and what medications patients are taking.

And, just like a walk-in visit to the doctor’s office, the telehealth visit is covered by Medicare or a patient’s insurance company. Medicaid also pays the facility a small tech fee, Chabrier said, which helps defray equipment maintenance costs and for having a staff present there.

Awkward, at first
At first, nursing home resident Mary Nicoletta said, it was a little strange talking to someone over the television.

“It was kind of awkward,” she said. “It’s not like him being in front of you.

After her third visit to her virtual doctor, however, she admits, it’s getting easier. “I’m getting more familiar with it,” she said.

Although she still likes to have a person in front of her, she said using telehealth is easier than being transported to his office and sitting in the waiting room. The care, she said, is the same as actually going to the doctor’s office.

Donna Sergisson agrees.

And for her, telehealth visits are actually easier emotionally.

“I would get nervous before going to the doctor,” she said. “Now I don’t because I’m doing it from my own home.”

The doctors, she said are kind, understanding and easy to talk to.

“They make you feel very comfortable,” she said. “It doesn’t bother me that it’s not in person. You really are face-to-face.”

Ted Mundy said the technology, to him, is fascinating. The Kodak retiree worked as a photographer for decades with engineers on cutting-edge film and burgeoning digital projects.

“I find it enlightening and very interesting,” he said, adding that he, too, finds the doctors easy to talk with about anything.

Afflicted with muscular sclerosis and requiring a wheelchair, Mundy said telehealth makes doctor’s visits much easier for him.

“It’s much more comfortable to be right here in this facility,” he said. “He comes in, I don’t have to go out.”