Coconino News

The COVID-19 pandemic forced Flagstaff-area physicians to expand telemedicine options and they now hope to keep it even after the present emergency is over, an area newspaper recently reported.

North Country Healthcare and Flagstaff Family Care Clinic responded to COVID-19 necessitated social distancing requirements by expanding their existing telemedicine program for patients, according to an Arizona Daily Sun news report.

The pandemic drove up demand for remote services but telemedicine also allows conservation of personal protective equipment, Flagstaff Family Care Family and Palliative Medicine Physician Dr. Andrew Martin told the Arizona Daily Sun. 

“This is overall the safest way to see patients while not exposing our staff, not exposing providers and not further exposing patients sitting in the waiting room next to each other, even if they’re sitting six feet apart," Martin said.

While the coronavirus necessitated quicker adoption, some in the field already had been pushing for expanded telemedicine, North Country Med-Peds physician Dr. Brandon Abbott said in the news report.

"Larger, traditional brick-and-mortar medical organizations have been looking at the model that commercial medicine has been using for quite a long time and we’ve been really, really wanting to utilize direct-to-patient telemedicine," Abbot said. "However, historically, there's always been a lot of barriers to do that. As a result of the state of emergency, a lot of those barriers have been lifted or relaxed."

Flagstaff Family Care Clinic is located on South Yale Street while North Country Healthcare is on North Fourth Street.

At least 36 COVID-19 cases have been reported in West Flagstaff/Fort Valley and East Flagstaff/N89A to Wupatki areas, according to figures posted at Coconino County's website.

Telemedicine services could continue to be beneficial during outbreaks of seasonal flu and other illness, as well as during major snowstorms and severe weather events often force closure of medical facilities.

"I think that the medical community as a whole looks at this as a way forward," Abbott said. "There's the hope that crisis spurs innovation and this is one thing that certainly we would hope to stay."