Telemedicine Rural Hospitals: A Case Study

Mergers The closure of so many departments coupled with reduced staffing levels has led several rural hospitals to offset their financial burden through mergers with larger health systems. The acquisition of smaller hospitals by larger health networks have been a growing trend in the healthcare industry. Noles (2015) notes that, the yearly number of hospital mergers have exponentially increased since 2009 with more than 60 percent of hospitals now in a network. Harrison (2011) has linked this increased propensity of hospital mergers to declining reimbursement combined with greater capital needs. In addition to health networks, rural hospitals have also started to acquire independent physician practices within the community. This is because many independent rural physicians are selling their practices due to the financial burden of operating independently. According to Anderson (2014), because of the financial costs of practice and increasing workloads, many physicians are foregoing independent practice in-favor of selling their practices to join larger physician groups. Mergers place rural hospitals in equal footing as their urban competitors by providing increased capital and support. The most visible advantage of mergers is …show more content…
Rural hospitals have been slow to adopt the new system due to a lack of provider buy-in. The biggest object limiting the widespread implementation of telemedicine is the potential security risks attributed to it. Hospitals are afraid that telemedicine software can become comprise; thus, allowing individuals to acquire confidential patient information. However, recent advances in telemedicine software have tried to reduce the possibility of patient information getting compromised. According to Zanaboni et al. (2009), most telemedicine systems are now equipped with software that allows hospitals to securely build an electronic patient