What is the WesleyCare Virtual Network Program?

WesleyCare Virtual Network was established in 2006 as the first telemedicine stroke program in Colorado, provided by neurologists at Swedish Medical Center. It has grown from the original 6 rural locations to over 60 partner locations in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming.

WesleyCareVirtual 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 WCVN, partner hospitals and clinics in a four-state region have access to real-time, fully interactive acute 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.

How does the WesleyCare Virtual Network function?

Clinical support is available 24/7/365 by contacting our Wesley OneCall Center. This allows partner sites to make a single call to request a telemedicine consult. 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. WesleyCare Virtual Network’s instant connection to specialty physicians with Wesley Medical Center and Swedish Medical Center, allows patients to be examined and diagnosed hundreds of miles away. WCVN’s telemedicine systems involve the installation of a video-enabled examination system in Emergency Departments and Medical Floors of remote hospitals and a wireless laptop or desktop that resides with an on-call physician.

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

experience.

WesleyCare Virtual Network Service Lines

  • Stroke
  • Acute Neurology
  • Psychiatry
  • Pediatric Echocardiogram

Stroke

For over a decade rural communities that lack on-site neurologists have had access to trained specialists at Swedish Medical Center, a level 1 trauma center and Wesley Medical Center neurologists and neurosurgeons via the WesleyCare Virtual Network, with the goal of keeping patients in their home community.

Every second counts in minimizing damage from a stroke and neurologists are on call 24 hours, 7 days a week and respond to alerts within minutes to assist on-site providers with diagnosis, treatment and medication recommendations.

In 2019, our Rural Hospital Tele-Stroke Retention rate was over 80%. Patient retention helps our partner sites minimize transportation costs, and improve patient care and satisfaction.

Bringing artificial intelligence to stroke care

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.

How does it work?

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.

What are the benefits?

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 WesleyCare Virtual Network allows our partner facilities to provide some of the most advanced stroke care to their communities.

Acute Neurology

Telemedicine consults are available for patients with acute neurological conditions that present to a partner site Emergency Room. Examples include, but are not limited to:

  • First-time seizure
  • Status epilepticus
  • Severe headache
  • Neuromuscular emergencies
  • Subarachnoid hemorrhage
  • Altered mental status
  • Sub-acute stroke

Psychiatry

There is a shortage of mental health coverage in our region, especially in rural areas. 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, Community Mental Health Centers and hospital based resources decreases the wait time for inpatient behavioral health bed placement.

Pediatric Echocardiograms

Through the telemedicine remote presence mechanism, children with suspected congenital heart disease can now be evaluated in their home community using echocardiography (ultrasound of the heart). This non-invasive technique can be viewed in real time as they are performed by the technician at the patient’s local hospital. This allows timely diagnosis with medical management, if required, to be initiated without delay in patients who are found to have significant heart disease.

This program provides immediate communication of results and consultation with the referring primary care physician or neonatologist, as well as discussion with the patient’s family. It allows a higher level of supervision and education of the technologists performing the study, who in many cases are primarily “adult” cardiac sonographers with limited experience in the evaluation of children. Over time, this can significantly increase the quality of the echocardiographic studies in local community hospitals and provide an improved level of care at the local level.

Contact Us

For questions or additional information about the program, please contact:

Karen Espeseth
Director of Telemedicine
4900 S. Monaco St., Suite 220,
Denver, CO 80237
Phone: (303) 330-7989
Email Karen


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