UVA Health’s telehealth programs rated 9—up from 8 in 2022

UVA Health has received a national honor for how it uses technology to support high-quality patient care.

UVA Health earned the “Most Wired” award from the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives, which conducts a national survey of health organizations to assess the integration and impact of technology in healthcare. On a scale of 1-10, UVA Health was rated a 9 in both inpatient and outpatient care – up from an 8 last year.

Robin Parkin, UVA Health’s chief information and technology office, was quoted in a news release as saying,  “Our health information technology team is striving to continually improve our services and technology offerings as we position UVA Health in delivering on its 10-year strategic plan across Virginia.”

Technology is used in many ways at UVA Health to provide care and expand access to care.

For example, the health system and a coalition of Southwest Virginia groups received a $5.1 million federal grant earlier this year to expand access to care in the region using a variety of innovative telehealth tools. Those telehealth offerings include interactive home monitoring, virtual urgent care and the expansion of UVA Health’s Isolation Communication Management System, a secure audiovisual system that enables safe care for patients with communicable diseases.

Supported by a $1.5 million federal grant announced earlier this year, UVA Health will also expand the use of its iTREAT system for mobile stroke care in seven Central Virginia counties. With iTREAT, paramedics who suspect patients are having a stroke are connected from their ambulances via a secure live video link to UVA’s specially trained stroke neurologists and emergency medicine physicians. The UVA physicians evaluate the patient with the paramedic while the patient is still in the ambulance, with the goal of faster treatment times once patients arrive at the hospital.