Reno an early adopter in 'game-changing' telemedicine program

Kris Pyles-Sweet, a physician assistant at Battle Mountain General Hospital, guesses about one-in-five patients she sees receive help they might not otherwise have gotten thanks to Project ECHO, a University of Nevada School of Medicine program, which pairs rural care providers with specialists in Reno through video conferencing. It works like this: Rural care providers gather case reports on patients with similar problems. Then once every week or two, they go to a room at their hospital or clinic that has an online video connection that puts them in touch with other rural providers around the state having similar issues as well as a team of specialists in Reno. It allows treatment of maybe six to eight times more patients in the same amount of time as traditional telemedicine.