Rural Idaho Hospitals Look to Telepharmacy to Offer Better Healthcare Services

George Prentice of the Boise Weekly details the use of two machines in Idaho's rural Adams County Health Center named Beatrice and Norman that dispense drugs approved remotely by a pharmacist in Ontario, Oregon. Live video via Skype allows for remote patient consultations should the patient want it. From the article:

You can't believe how thrilled our providers are," said Langston-Groves. "We had this installed here after obtaining a special order from Gov. Otter."

The success in Council has led Langston-Groves to consider duplicating their effort to nearby Valley County where, by all accounts, the need is as great.

...

But administration at McCall Memorial, which just three months ago joined the St. Luke's network of hospitals, isn't so sure they want to see a low-cost clinic near their turf. Two weeks ago, hospital administrators told the McCall Star News that "adding more medical providers could damage our long-term financial viability." But officials back-pedaled a bit when BW asked about the proposal.

"We're going to do a formal assessment to determine the need," said Lee Rhodes, CEO of St. Luke's McCall.

"I really hope the hospital doesn't try to shut this effort down," said Backus. "With these hard times and people struggling as much as they are, I don't know why folks aren't jumping at this. There's no way that a low-cost clinic in Donnelly is going to be, in any way, competition toward a large medical facility in McCall."

Considering that McCall is less than 13 miles away from Donnelly, I don't think it's a big logical leap to worry about considering what the McCall Memorial "administrators" said. Hopefully they will put peoples needs before their own profits...