Institute for Digital Health & Innovation

June 25, 2020

Digital Health Visits Help Regional Campuses Meet COVID-19 Challenges

Ben Boulden

Jordan Weaver, M.D., uses a digital health video connection to talk to a colleague. Weaver helped lead the digital health effort at the UAMS Family Medical Center in Batesville.

Brittnay Hall, 39, was at an impasse: COVID-19 worries were making worse her pre-existing problems with anxiety. Also, thinking of having an in-person visit with her physician about her anxiety medications made her feel unsafe. Digital health technology resolved her dilemma. Hall, of Newark, had a more-than-20-year patient-physician relationship with Julia Roulier, M.D., a family…

February 24, 2020

Blue & You Foundation Gives $147,000 to UAMS AR-IMPACT to Help Physicians Fight Opioid Use Statewide

Benjamin Waldrum

UAMS Chancellor Cam Patterson, M.D., MBA, receives the check from Patrick O'Sullivan, Blue & You Foundation executive director. Beau Blair Jr., UAMS Board of Advisors chair (at left) also accepted along with members of the AR-IMPACT team.

A $147,000 grant from the Blue & You Foundation for a Healthier Arkansas will allow the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) to expand a program to fight opioid addiction around the state through use of its digital health network. The announcement was made Feb. 20 at UAMS by the Blue & You Foundation,…

January 21, 2020

New UAMS HealthNow Offers 24/7 Digital Health, Live Video Access to Convenient Care

Ben Boulden

Curtis Lowery, M.D., left, answers questions during a television interview about the new UAMS HealthNow, 24-hour, online convenience health care service.

Starting today through UAMS HealthNow, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) has begun providing 24-hour, digital health access to convenient, real-time care for Arkansas patients using the internet through mobile devices or computers. Arkansas patients at any time can connect via live video and see UAMS expert health care providers who offer a…

December 11, 2019

UAMS Awarded $4 Million to Study Digital Delivery of Heart Patient Care

Spencer Watson

Leanne Lefler, Ph.D., RN, APRN, FAHA

The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) has been awarded $4 million by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to study digital delivery of health care to patients with heart failure. The project is under the leadership of Leanne Lefler, Ph.D., APRN, an associate professor in the College of Nursing, who is a Fellow…

October 16, 2019

UAMS Institute for Digital Health & Innovation Awarded $4 Million Grant to Help Sexual Assault Victims

Ben Boulden

UAMS Institute for Digital Health & Innovation

A new digital health program to provide the expertise of sexual assault nurse examiners to rural hospital emergency departments recently received funding through a $4 million, federal grant to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Institute for Digital Health & Innovation. The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office for Victims of Crime awarded the…

October 9, 2019

Digital Health Stroke Program Reaches Patient Care Milestone

Ben Boulden

More than 300 health care professionals gather to listen to presentations at the UAMS Institute for Digital Health's 2019 Stroke Program Conference.

Applause greeted Renee Joiner when she announced a long sought after achievement for Arkansas’ digital health stroke network — getting more than 50% of stroke patients from hospital arrival to treatment in 60 minutes or less. Along with many other speakers, Joiner, director of the UAMS Institute for Digital Health & Innovation Stroke Program, addressed…

September 4, 2019

Awardees Honored for Contributions to Digital Health

Spencer Watson

Ryan Kelly and Curtis Lowery

The UAMS-led South Central Telehealth Resource Center recently presented three awards to honor those for their work building networks for and advocacy of digital medicine. The awards were presented at the South Central Telehealth Forum, held Aug. 19 and 20 in Nashville, Tennessee. The resource center serves Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee. It functions primarily through…

August 9, 2019

UAMS Partners With Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield to Expand Comprehensive Digital Health Network

Benjamin Waldrum

UAMS Chancellor Cam Patterson, M.D., MBA, Mahlon O. Maris, M.D., Curtis Barnett, Angela Wimmer, M.Ed., and Curtis Lowery, M.D., pose in front of a digital health interpretive wall commemorating the digital health partnership and honoring Maris' legacy.

A $1 million grant to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) from Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield will enable the UAMS Institute for Digital Health & Innovation to advance digital health statewide to provide patients better and more streamlined access to health care. The grant was announced today as leaders from UAMS…

May 3, 2019

FCC Commissioner Impressed by UAMS Digital Health Initiatives

Ben Boulden

May 3, 2019 | UAMS’ pioneering work in bringing health care to those who need it through digital health applications has drawn the attention of a top federal official who traveled from Washington D.C. to UAMS recently to see for herself. Jessica Rosenworcel, a commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission, visited April 29 with UAMS Chancellor Cam Patterson, M.D., MBA; guests of the university; and leaders of UAMS’ new Institute for Digital Health & Innovation, including institute director Curtis Lowery, M.D. “We are 46th out of 50 states in health outcomes,” Patterson said. “UAMS needs to change that for the better, and we won’t do it just by staying in Pulaski County.” Telemedicine allows health professionals to diagnose and treat patients not physically present by using telecommunications technology, such as live video. It allows UAMS to extend its presence beyond its main campus and regional campuses. The creation of the institute, under the leadership of Patterson and Lowery, was announced in February and builds upon several telemedicine programs already in place, including ANGELS for high-risk pregnancy, AR SAVES for stroke, STAR for rural School-Based Health Centers and more. The institute connects the majority of hospitals and clinics across the state with telemedicine through interactive video and other digital services. Lowery gave a brief presentation to Rosenworcel about the history of digital health and telemedicine at UAMS. Lowery, Tina Benton, B.S.N., and a small team of clinicians and staff in 2003 founded ANGELS to bring maternal-fetal medicine to women with high-risk pregnancies who did not live near such a specialist. ANGELS (the Antenatal and Neonatal Guidelines, Education and Learning System) is an innovative consultative service for a wide range of physicians including family practitioners, obstetricians, neonatologists and pediatricians in Arkansas. An ANGELS obstetrician can talk to a pregnant mother via a live video connection and watch an ultrasound image of her baby from a local hospital so she can avoid traveling to Little Rock hours away. Lowery said the institute is doing a pilot study to see if ANGELS’ live video consultations can help during an emergency labor-and-delivery. “That’s the only way you’re going to do anything about it,” Lowery said. “By the time you transfer a mother from that smaller hospital, we might lose her because of excessive bleeding. I think in the next year we’re going to explore the idea of delivering blood by using drones. It could make a real difference when a hospital doesn’t have the blood for a massive loss.” Rosenworcel said she was intrigued by the idea of using drones to facilitate the transportation of blood and transplant organs. During her visit, she observed a live ANGELS consultation with a pregnant mother in another Arkansas town and toured the 24-hour call center that routes calls for ANGELS and other telemedicine programs like Arkansas Stroke Assistance through Virtual Emergency Support (AR SAVES). Renee Joiner, B.S.N., AR SAVES director, briefed Rosenworcel about the stroke telemedicine program. UAMS started AR SAVES in 2008 to provide telemedicine consultations with stroke neurologists at any time via live video. Through this service, almost 2,000 patients have received a clot-busting drug that often restores complete function to the patient. Arkansas recently fell to seventh in the nation in the number of stroke deaths per capita after many years in first place, a huge improvement credited in part to the efforts of AR SAVES. “I went down to Crossett on Friday and met a 27-year-old gentleman who had a stroke and went to the Ashley County Medical Center,” Patterson said. “He was treated through AR SAVES. Without this, he probably would have been a paraplegic and unable to work.” Rosenworcel learned about the trauma telemedicine program and the School Telemedicine in Arkansas (STAR) program, the first-ever effort to bring telemedicine care to Arkansas’ rural School-Based Health Centers. STAR two years ago rolled out the Healthy Now initiative for obesity reduction and prevention. Graduate students from the University of Central Arkansas and a UAMS nutritionist engage the students in one-on-one telemedicine encounters. “We piloted the program in the Magazine School District,” said Alan Faulkner, a program manager for the institute. “With two groups of participating students, 51% in one group reduced their weight, and 66% in another group reduced their weight.” Rosenworcel said she found those numbers to be very impressive. She was also given an overview of the Arkansas e-Link network by network director Roy Kitchen. The network was created from a $102 million grant awarded in August 2010 to UAMS and partner institutions through the federal Broadband Technology Opportunities Program Comprehensive Community Infrastructure grant. Led by UAMS, e-Link uses high-speed data transmission lines to connect about 400 community institutions for videoconferencing between medical professionals, patients and doctors and others along with the real-time exchange of patient data and readings. “Your approach has been great,” Rosenworcel said. “Instead of building a network and then finding problems to solve with it, you identified many real problems in public health and specific ways a digital health network can be used to solve them.” Rosenworcel especially enjoyed being able to meet an ANGELS patient via live video and observe the patient’s telemedicine consultation. “We are becoming one of the most connected states in the nation, and we believe with that we can use digital health to improve the health and quality of life of Arkansans,” Lowery said.

UAMS’ pioneering work in bringing health care to those who need it through digital health applications has drawn the attention of a top federal official who traveled from Washington D.C. to UAMS recently to see for herself. Jessica Rosenworcel, a commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission, visited April 29 with UAMS Chancellor Cam Patterson, M.D.,…

March 7, 2019

UAMS-Led Stroke Program Helps Lower Arkansas to Seventh in Stroke Deaths among All States

Ben Boulden

Renee Joiner, AR SAVES director, right, Sanjeeva Reddy Onteddu, M.D., AR SAVES medical director, and Ken Kelly, CEO of ProMed ambulance company in El Dorado, stand in October in front of Medical Center of South Arkansas, an AR SAVES network site.

Arkansas recently fell from sixth to seventh place in the nation in the number of stroke deaths per capita, a huge improvement that health officials credit in part to a statewide telemedicine program of stroke education and treatment led by the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). Only four years ago, Arkansas still was…


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