News from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences 

UAMS Helps Brinkley Women, Physicians
Through Long-distance Television Hook-ups

MARCH 29, 2001 | Physicians at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) recently began providing consultations for high-risk pregnant women in Brinkley (Monroe County), AR, through television hook-ups.

Obstetricians at UAMS who specialize in high-risk pregnancies will be able to examine and talk with the women and their local physician, Jim Sarinaglo, M.D., through interactive compressed video (ICV), a type of “telemedicine” technology that allows persons in separate locations to see and talk to each other on television screens.

The Brinkley consultations are the newest telemedicine service of the UAMS Rural Hospital Program, which is responsible for improving access to quality health services for patients and physicians Arkansans in rural areas. The program uses ICV to link rural patients and their doctors with specialists at UAMS in cardiology, obstetrics and gynecology, psychiatry, neurology, dermatology, pulmonary, pediatrics, gastroenterology, speech pathology, pharmacy, and dietetics and nutrition. In a typical month, UAMS doctors in the telemedicine network teach or provide consultations to physicians and other health care professionals around Arkansas at least once a day.

The Monroe County Health Unit in Brinkley is the first county health department in Arkansas to join the the UAMS telemedicine network. The specific medical needs in Brinkley and the health department include emphasis on the increasing geriatric population, including services for high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, anemia, and communicable diseases, as well as mental health, speech pathology, rehabilitation, high risk pregnancy, and genetic counseling. Physicians and telemedicine administrators will evaluate the service to Monroe County to determine whether it is feasible to provide similar services to other counties.

UAMS received a three-year grant from the federal Department of Health and Human Services, Office for the Advancement of Telehealth, in September to extend the state's telemedicine network to six new sites in eastern Arkansas. The new sites include two certified rural health clinics (Hughes Health Clinic and Marked Tree Health Clinic), one rural public high school (Clarendon High School), one county department of health (Monroe County Health Unit, Brinkley AR), and two rural hospitals (Chicot Memorial Hospital, Lake Village, AR & Helena Regional Medical Center, Helena, AR).

The grant is covering the cost of ICV equipment at the remote sites as well as local and consulting physicians' fees for patients without insurance.

The administrator at the Monroe County Health Unit in Brinkley is Shirley Coburn. Dr. Sarinaglo, of Forrest City, drives to Brinkley once a week to see patients in Monroe County. The obstetrical patients in Monroe County must drive to the nearest hospital, in Forrest City, to give birth.

Links in This Article

UAMS Rural Hospital Program: www.uams.edu/ahec/Rhp2.htm
Typical Month: www.uams.edu/today/032901/telemed2.htm
Office for the Advancement of Telehealth: http://telehealth.hrsa.gov/

08/04/03