Two of Saint Luke’s Critical Access Hospitals in Missouri receive support from virtual hospitalists using Eagle’s TeleNocturnist program. A third hospital in Saint Luke’s Health System, Cushing Hospital in Leavenworth County, Kansas, uses Eagle’s remote hospitalists to support its 54 bed facility.
The Challenge
Saint Luke’s Health System (SLHS) was no stranger to telemedicine when it called on Eagle to provide TeleNocturnist services in three of its 16 hospitals and specialty care institutes in November 2017. SLHS had been providing its own telemedicine program to several facilities. A drive to improve efficiencies in care prompted the company to turn over it virtual hospitalist the program to Eagle, which already had a strong presence in rural hospitals in Kansas.
The Solution: Virtual Hospitalists
Dr. Anthony Fangman, MF, FHM, MBA, has served as division chair of hospital medicine for SLHS the past 12 years. He describes the switch to Eagle’s services as “seamless, with little or no management involvement, which was incredibly helpful from a division chair standpoint.” He thought changing from an internal service to one led by external providers might have its rough moments, but he says there were none with Eagle. “This transition could have been difficult. However, the experience with Eagle was completely seamless,” he says. The changeover happened quickly and smoothly, and immediately SLHS began to see it had made the right decision.
