 Hi, I'm Steve Blodgett with the telemedicine department at Mid-Michigan Health. Today, I'd like to share with you a program that Mid-Michigan Health has that expands patient access to healthcare throughout our communities. This program is called telehealth. Telehealth and telemedicine are two terms that you may have heard interchangeably. Telehealth refers to a broader spectrum of remote technologies, including home monitoring. Whereas telemedicine refers to technology that enables you or a loved one to receive your medical care remotely. At Mid-Michigan Health, we use state-of-the-art technology to connect our patients with specialists eliminating the need for costly or stressful ambulance transfers, improving access to those specialists that patients may not have had the means to consult with, and to save time and travel for both the patient and their family members. Telemedicine uses audio and video equipment with a secure internet connection to enable a specialist in another location to examine, consult with the local care team, and provide the patient with expert advice. With telemedicine, the patient is able to see, hear, and interact with the expert just as they would during an in-person visit. If a patient is having symptoms concerning for stroke in their local emergency room, the local emergency room physician will call us up, we hop on video, evaluate the patient, and make recommendations about acute stroke treatment and further workup that might be needed. Telemedicine affords me the opportunity to take care of patients 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with specialty access for neurology and telestroke for patients that have stroke-like symptoms. The best thing about the telestroke program is that the care comes to the patient instead of the patient having to travel to the care. So the expertise from the Michigan Medicine Stroke Team is actually brought right to the emergency room or the inpatient setting where the patient is. Yeah, it allows me to provide the appropriate treatment at the right place at the right time. I think that patient care is always best when there are a lot of people thinking about a patient. So having the local emergency room physician, the stroke team, and then having the input of the patient and the patient's family all coming together to make a decision about what's best for that patient, you really can't go wrong with that kind of group huddle. Recently I took care of a gentleman that had a procedure and started to exhibit some symptoms of weakness of his left side and there was some uncertainty as to whether we were dealing with an acute stroke. It was nice that I was able to utilize the telestroke service from the University of Michigan at the bedside in real time to help me evaluate the patient and determine the correct course of action. We've had a lot of cases with some really incredible outcomes. We've had a number of patients who have been able to be treated with a clot-busting medication called IVTPA very quickly in their local emergency room and actually leave the hospital after a couple-day hospitalization without any deficits at all, which is really incredible after a stroke. So as a member of the medical staff, we are always exploring opportunities to enhance the care that we provide locally. And we're looking at utilizing telemedicine and expanding the capabilities that we have locally. We're just exploring what are the particular needs for our community and how best can we meet them. Thank you for watching one of many short videos in our new telemedicine mini-series. I encourage you to watch the remaining videos as they are published. Each of these will highlight just one more way that MidMichigan Health and its partners are providing access to healthcare in our communities. For more information, please visit our webpage at midMichigan.org forward slash telemedicine.