HealthONE Virtual Network

The HCA HealthONE/WesleyCare Virtual Network (H1VN/WCVN) was established in 2006 as the first telemedicine stroke program in Colorado, provided by neurologists at HCA HealthONE Swedish. The Network has grown from the original 6 rural locations to over 85 partner locations in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming. The H1VN/WCVN now offers 7 service lines to our partners.

The HCA HealthONE/WesleyCare Virtual Network is an innovative program that uses HIPAA-compliant telemedicine technology to bring the best of healthcare to communities that need 24/7 access to specialists but do not have local resources. Through the H1VN/WCVN, partner hospitals in a four-state region have access to real-time, fully interactive emergent and routine consultations with medical specialists 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Our goals are simple: improve patient care, keep patients and families in their home communities, and assist in transport of a patient if a higher level of care is needed.

Clinical support is available 24/7/365 by contacting the HCA HealthONE/WesleyCare care teams. The call centers provide dedicated clinical staff to: assist with telemedicine consults, admit or transfer a patient, have a conversation with a clinician, coordinate care and keep current with patient progress. The HCA HealthONE/WesleyCare Virtual Network’s instant connection to specialty physicians with HCA HealthONE Swedish, Wesley Medical Center, HCA HealthONE Aurora, and HCA HealthONE Rocky Mountain Children’s at Presbyterian St. Luke’s allows patients to be examined and diagnosed hundreds of miles away. H1VN/WCVN’s telemedicine systems involve the installation of a video-enabled examination system in Emergency Departments and Medical Floors of remote hospitals and a telehealth workstation that resides with an on-call physician.

The HCA HealthONE/WesleyCare Virtual Network delivers smooth audio and video from any internet connection, dramatic zoom capabilities, and real-time communications with near perfect audio and video synchronization. The patient and physicians both have two-way video and audio for a more accurate and personal experience.

Neurologists from the Swedish Medical Center neuroscience center of excellence are available 24/7/365 to provide consults in the emergency department for such Emergent Neurologic Conditions as, but not limited to: First time seizure, status epilepticus, severe headache, neuro muscular emergencies, subarachnoid hemorrhage, altered mental status, sub acute stroke

There is a shortage of mental health coverage in our region, especially in rural areas. HealthONE/WesleyCare Virtual Network's goal is to meet that need with its TelePsychiatry program. Partner sites can request consults 24 hours a day, seven days a week and a psychiatrist performs a full psychiatric evaluation through telemedicine with patients. Our psychiatry providers assist on site providers with diagnosis, short and long term treatment recommendations and medication guidance. These patients receive a rapid psychiatric evaluation and in patient level of medication intervention. These two factors, along with supplementation of our Tele-Behavioral Health program, Community Mental Health Centers, and hospital based resources decreases the wait time for inpatient behavioral health bed placement.

Licensed clinicians available 24/7/365 at The Medical Center of Aurora’s Behavioral Health and Wellness Center will evaluate patients at partner locations to: help determine safety of discharge, need for transfer to an inpatient behavioral health unit, assist with safety planning, provide resources for patient follow-up, and refer to outpatient clinics when appropriate. Our clinicians help maneuver your patients to the next level of care as quickly as possible.

The viability and importance of the HealthONE Virtual Network is evidenced by the success of its stroke program. By the end of December, 2014, over 4,000 stroke telemedicine consults had been conducted with our network partners. Of those, 785 patients were deemed eligible for t-PA, the only clot-dissolving drug proven highly-effective at helping people experiencing strokes.

This translates to a 20% treatment rate for the clot‑busting therapy—an approximately four-fold increase over the national rate. 59% of rural patients treated tele-medically stay in their local hospital as well as 87% of urban and suburban patients, rather than being transferred to another facility.

• Stroke kills almost 137,000 Americans each year. That's 1 in every 18 deaths.
• On average, one American dies from stroke every 4 minutes.
• Every year, more than 795,000 people in the United States have a stroke.
• Stroke is the 4th leading cause of death in the United States.
• About 40 percent of stroke deaths occur in males, and 60 percent in females. (Source: American Stroke Association)

Synchronized stroke care reduces time to notification of suspected large vessel occlusions. As the region’s leading provider of telestroke services, the HealthONE Virtual Network provides 24/7 neurology coverage for more than 50 hospitals in a five-state region. Now we’ve added artificial intelligence to automatically detect suspected large vessel occlusions (LVOs), providing earlier identification of stroke and helping improve time to therapeutic intervention.

Artificial intelligence is used to automatically detect suspected LVOs on CTA imaging and directly alert the on-call stroke specialists about potentially treatable patients.

Stroke-protocoled CTA images from remote hospitals are sent directly to the HealthONE Virtual Network where an advanced deep learning algorithm automatically analyzes them on a HIPAA-compliant cloud.

When a suspected LVO is found, an alert is sent to the on-call stroke specialists within less than 6 minutes,* where they are able to review images using a mobile viewer.

Automated detection could help identify more suspected LVOs and provide earlier notification to the stroke specialists, reducing time to therapeutic treatment and ensuring that only appropriate patients are transferred.

Being a part of the HealthONE Virtual Network allows our partner facilities to provide some of the most advanced stroke care to their communities.

*1 FDA De Novo DEN170073, Core Lab Study, 2 Center, n=44, Sensitivity 87.8%, Specificity 89.6%. 2017.

Many neurological conditions requiring inpatient care need assessment and treatment from an experienced neurologist in an inpatient setting.

EEG tests are used to help diagnose brain conditions such as brain tumors, sleep disorders, epilepsy and other seizure disorders. They can detect abnormalities in your brain waves and electrical activity by using small, metal disks called electrodes.