With the press of a button, some patients can now virtually meet with a specialist at the main Huntsville Hospital location.

Two hospitals in the HH Health facilities are equipped with state-of-the-art cameras to assist patients who require psychiatric or neurological care.

The HH Health System’s Telemedicine Program Manager, Sara Werner, said these specialties have the greatest need for connecting with specialists.

According to the HH Health System website, thousands of North Alabamians struggle with depression, alcoholism, and other behavioral health issues. There are only a few state-licensed psychiatrists in the area. They report fewer than 75 practices in North Alabama, and the majority of them are in Madison County.

This program is already active at Madison Hospital and will help people at Helen Keller Hospital in Sheffield later this year.

“When they’re traveling, it’s a strain because of the patients in, let’s say, Huntsville Hospital and their family lives in Florence, that that can be a big burden to be so far away from their family,” Werner said. “The expense of the family having to drive back and forth and just the stress of not being in your own community.”

Telehealth neurological services are already available at Helen Keller Hospital. That means the on-call neurologist at Huntsville Hospital can help consult with patients from 75 miles away. Telehealth specialists can review medical histories, prescribe medication and help develop a treatment plan.

These two hospitals were chosen, in part, because they can support the telemedicine carts needed for these visits. They have reliable Wi-Fi connections and strong connectivity bandwidth to provide service, according to Werner.

There are “telehealth carts” with state-of-the-art cameras to help connect patients and Huntsville Hospital specialists.

“Our carts have a 20x zoom for stroke care, especially,” Werner said. “The physicians are going to need to zoom in and see the pupils. That’s really important to be able to have the tools so that the physician assessment can be just the same quality as it would be for a patient in person.”

Werener said that they eventually want to grow, both to expand to more hospitals and specialties, like pulmonology and cardiology.

“We look to eventually expand to all of our system hospitals that have a need,” Werner said. “As you know, this program is new, and we’re really focused on that long-term growth, but we want it to be sustainable, and so we’re expanding gradually. Telemedicine is new for us. We want to be able to learn from each launch and really adapt as we grow.”