Nov. 17, 2014 | The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Emergency Department recently began providing emergency medical support via a telemedicine connection to the Chicot Memorial Medical Center in Lake Village.

As part of the pilot project, ER-DOCS, UAMS Emergency Department faculty and resident physicians will be available 24 hours a day to provide real-time, high-speed video telemedicine consultations to Chicot Memorial physicians about their Emergency Room patients. The pilot will also utilize the UAMS Center for Distance Health’s Call Center to help facilitate the calls and provide video support during the interactive consult to ensure connectivity.

“ER-DOCS will help improve decision making about the need for patient transfers,” said Rawle Seupaul, M.D., chairman of the UAMS College of Medicine Department of Emergency Medicine. “Unnecessary transfers to other facilities can be avoided and keep patients closer to home. Through access to UAMS specialists, ER-DOCS can work with Chicot Memorials’ physicians and staff to enhance the quality of patient care and ensure best practices are applied on a consistent basis.”

A central goal of ER-DOCS also is to provide a cost-effective method for improving access to quality emergency care in rural Arkansas.

“Our level 3 Trauma Center designated Emergency Department already does a great job of handling the patients seen here. ER-DOCS gives us an opportunity to enhance the high level of quality care that residents in our region can find close to home here at Chicot Memorial,” said David Mantz, CEO of Chicot Memorial Medical Center. “ER- DOCS will give our physicians and staff access to the expertise available at UAMS for more complex and more rarely seen situations. We’re committed to a continual process of improvement in patient care and in emergency care, and we are excited to be a part of this important initiative.”

UAMS is designated as the only Adult Level I Trauma Center in the state of Arkansas. Faculty physicians share a strong commitment to advancing the quality of care for patients with emergent medical conditions through research, teaching and state-of-the-art clinical practice. With 26 resident physicians in training, the UAMS Department of Emergency Medicine operates the state’s only Emergency Medicine Residency Program accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.

“Through telemedicine and more collaborations like this one between UAMS and Chicot Memorial, residents of rural Arkansas increasingly will be able to get access to the same quality of health care offered in the state’s urban centers,” Seupaul said. “Pilot projects like this are what will enable us to remove the obstacles that result in health care disparities between cities and rural areas.”