JCH & L Welcomes Innovative Technology to Provide Patients with Mental Health Services

FAIRBURY - Jefferson Community Health & Life is stepping into the future, in order to better serve their patients. For those residents who are having to travel to Lincoln for mental health treatment, the hospital will now be able to provide you with an accessible option. Bryan Telemedicine Chief Operations Officer Shame Fleming says, "To be able to offer these services locally, and our goal is absolutely to take care of more patients here locally, and prevent patients from having to drive so many miles to seek services that - in some cases they just won't access because they have to drive." A Board Certified Family Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner will be able to examine and speak with patients through Bryan Telemedicine technology. A nurse will be present to assist in the patient's visit. This technology will also be a game-changer for those providers who are having to travel long distances to rural communities. "You know these providers are so busy, and then with all the regulations, they're just to the point where, 'I can't drive somewhere for two hours, one-way, to see four or five patients and then drive back two hours. I'm burning four hours on the road. It just doesn't work anymore.'" Fleming told a room of nurses and community members on Friday that the technology has proven to be successful. Along with the E - Mental Health service, the hospital is also working on providing their patients with E - Pharmacy. "The E - Pharmacy program, where basically we provide pharmacist support in the evening and night hours, weekends and holidays to help the hospital maintain all the standards that they need from a pharmacy perspective. A lot of rural hospitals struggle to have full-time pharmacists on around-the-clock, and several of them to do that." Innovative technology, connecting patients with providers with just a few clicks.