Approximately a year ago or so, there was a good bit of anxiety on the Mid-Shore about the plans of the region’s two major hospitals in Chestertown and Easton. In Chestertown, there was a growing fear that UM Regional Shore Health would eventually eliminate the existing hospital and replace it with an urgent/emergency care center. While in Easton there were increased concerns that Shore Health would abandon its plans for a new hospital.
Those community apprehensions turned out to be fortunately unfounded thanks to a combination of the politicians interceding to create a state study group on rural hospitals and a more stable economic climate which allowed for the advancement of a new hospital near the Easton Airport.
But one of the major takeaways of these two episodes was how profoundly attached communities are with their local hospitals. For a variety of reasons, including interest in patient comfort, proximity, and in some cases, mere nostalgia, residents were determined to fight to keep their local facilities alive and functioning.
The other takeaway, perhaps not as well noticed by many, was the increasing awareness that through advanced technology and efficiency, there is an emerging radically new way to provide health care in the 21st-century and is the growth of telemedicine.
The Spy, which has had an ongoing curiosity about the use of technology and how it may impact rural health delivery, was lucky enough to secure an interview with Marc Zubrow, Vice President, Telemedicine and Medical Director, eCare in charge of telemedicine for the entire University of Maryland Medical System. And in our interview, Dr. Zubrow makes a compelling case why this use of remote medical consultation will be dramatically improving patient care and outcomes regardless of location.
This video is approximately six minutes in length. For more information about UMMS and telemedicine please go here
Margery Elsberg says
Dear Dr. Zubrow,
Our Chestertown hospital’s patients, doctors, hospitalists and nursing staff have been linked to your department’s outstanding telemedicine services for years, as you doubtless are aware. After all, you and your specialists, sub-specialists and sub-sub-specialists in Baltimore have been treating patients and nurses via those video screens behind you, analyzing our heart rhythms and other vital signs, and looking at MRI and CT-Scan pictures and incredibly clear video of wounds, infection sites and other indicators of health and illness for a long time now. I’d guess everyone here is grateful for the state-of-the-art assistance you render our Eastern Shore community’s patients in real time.
What you don’t seem to understand, however, is that we are thankful for your telemedicine services not only because they offer instant access to UMMS Baltimore specialists and sub-specialists, but because they offer advice and treatment to patients who are being treated in their local hospital, close to home. And that is precisely why we objected last year–so compellingly that the General Assembly responded and “saved” our hospital’s inpatient services–when UM Shore Regional Health told us they were planning to eliminate those services as soon as the new–and critically needed–Easton hospital is up and running. The Easton hospital project is now on track to open in 2022 and the plan to close Chestertown’s inpatient beds is, by law, off the table at least until 2020 and it might be off the table for good. We are gaining confidence that the state’s Rural Health Care Delivery Plan Workgroup will design a healthcare plan for the five-county Mid-Shore counties that will do lots of good things, including expanding telemedicine services and keeping inpatient services in Chestertown.
Our community’s residents did not want Marcus Welby to reappear at our bedside when we protested last year–I have no idea where you got that idea. We may be country folk, but we know about the benefits of modern medicine. We simply don’t want to endure the very real risk of being driven to Easton every time we need to be hospitalized for something that can be treated in Chestertown. In this part of the state, where there is no functioning public transportation, many of us are too old to drive for doctors appointments or to visit loved ones, and many of us don’t have cars or licenses. Missing appointments and feeling stranded in a hospital bed with no visitors is not good medicine, with or without video hookups to Baltimore.
Come visit us any time. We’ll be happy to show you our hospital’s new Intensive Care Unit at the other end of your telemedicine link, and we’ll show you what healthy rural life is like. There’s clean air to breathe and no nerve-jangling traffic noise. You can kayak or row on the Chester River and run or bike along quiet roads. If you want to try being a hunter-gatherer, go fishing and check a friend’s trot line for crabs, hunt deer, ducks or geese, and pick up vegetables at our farmers markets. If you want to reduce stress, try the arts: take up painting or learn to use a potters wheel, listen to jazz, blues, classical, rock ‘n’ roll, or Broadway’s best and dance in the street on Legacy Day. Tickets to our plays, shows and concerts are mostly $15 but lots of concerts are free. And if all of this throws your heart rhythm off-kilter, just come to our UMMS hospital. We’ll take good care of you–I promise.
Kenneth Kozel says
We have the highest regard for the expertise, knowledge and sophistication of the citizens and health care providers in Kent County and Chestertown. We apologize if the interpretation of comments in this video suggested otherwise. The University of Maryland Shore Regional Health Board, executives and team members, in partnership with the University of Maryland Medical System, applaud the vision and passion of these citizens and health care providers in supporting excellent health care in their community and the region.
Ken Kozel, CEO, UM Shore Regional Health