New Partnership Looks to Extend Telehealth Throughout Wyoming

The University of Wyoming School of Pharmacy is partnering with a chain of urgent care centers to launch roughly two dozen telehealth clinics in retail locations across Wyoming.

Stitches Acute Care Center, which has locations in Cheyenne and Laramie, is using a $62,500 grant from the US Department of Agriculture to launch InstaClinics, which use telemedicine technology to create virtual visits with a physician, nurse or nurse practitioner at the university.

Clinics are now located in Casper, Kemmerer, Laramie, Pinedale and Sheridan, and plans call for some 20 more clinics to open across the state.

Access to health care services is particularly challenging in Wyoming, one of the nation’s most rural and least populated states. According to the Wyoming Department of Health, just 5 percent of the state’s healthcare providers now use telehealth, while 11.5 percent of the population is uninsured.

“When one is struggling to have basic needs covered, it is no wonder preventive health care is not a priority,” Dan Surdam, MD, who created Stitches with his wife Amy, said in a press release issued by the university.  “Wyoming ranks 50th in the nation for adults without appropriate cancer screening, 50th for young children without recommended vaccinations and 49th for adults without a routine doctor visit in the prior two years. Our state ranks 47th for adults without a usual source of medical care.”

“Telemedicine, as a way to reach people in remote and underserved areas, has been in existence for decades,” added Amy, a family nurse practitioner. “However, utilization remains low. Even with the advancement of technology, patients in rural areas tend to either look to traditional brick-and-mortar clinics to receive care, even if it means driving for hours or foregoing care altogether.”

The Surdams, in their partnership with the university, are hoping to change the public perception of telehealth by making it more noticeable and easy to use. Located in high-traffic areas like pharmacies, the InstaClinics will offer consumers easy audio-visual access to a care provider for primary care and some other services.