Harlan Kirgan
By Harlan Kirgan
Editor
OPELOUSAS — A telemedicine pilot program operated by Opelousas General Health System at Arnaudville Elementary School has been approved by the School Board’s Executive Committee.
The telemedicine program would allow medical professionals to conduct examinations on students and school employees.
The pilot program is assisted in its launch with a $20,000 grant from Cleco.
The committee’s approval must be followed by a postive vote from the full School Board for the program to start.
Sylvia Guidry-Brown, lead nurse for the St. Landry Parish School System, said, “Just think of it as doctor’s office on a school campus.”
Kenneth Cochran, OGHS president and CEO, said the program must pay for itself.
“Essentially what this is creating is a beginning of a very large medical home, a large medical home for all the employees that work for St. Landry Parish schools and all of the students.”
The success of the telemedicine program will “...depend on how much the students use it how much the nurses use it, how much the teachers use it. What we find in our medical home is that 90 percent of the people that get services within our medical home are at work, so that is a lot of lost work time that is not happening, which is really nice,” Cochran said.
Mary Ellen Donatto, a Eunice area School Board member, said, “As an administrator I never got to go to the doctor. They weren’t open when I went to work and they were closed when I go off. So, that’s a wonderful experience.”
Andrew Brickley, OGHS vice president of business development, who presented the program to the committee along with Guidry-Brown, said the telemedicine program is designed to create ease of access to health care and efficiencies.
Guidry-Brown said the program should reduce lost classroom hours by students and teachers.
In some cases, parents lose work hours and pay when taking care of sick children, she said.
Most of Louisiana is under-served by health care, Brickley said.
“Telemedicine is the resource that can help level the playing field in medically under-served communities,” he said.
“If a student has a common cold you don’t want them leaving school for a common cold because they can learn. Now, if that same student has pink eye that is radically different. We don’t want that student in class,” Brickley said.
In OGHS’s primary service area it may take up to 27 miles round trip to see a provider. If the person is in OGHS’s secondary service area the drive may be up to 56 miles round trip, he said.
The service also saves a trip to the emergency room for care where costs can range up to more than $200 a visit, he said.
Guidry-Brown said the telemedicine will not replace school nurses. Telemedicine would be for acute care. Prescriptions for students would be called into a pharmacy. For school employees, prescriptions could be delivered to the school.
Cochran said the goal is to have the program in every school in St. Landry Parish.
Brickley cited studies showing there is a 63 percent reduction in absenteeism with telemedicine and a high level of satisfaction with the service.