Becky Harless
Associate Administrator of the Ambulatory Division,
Charleston Area Medical Center
KRISTEN UPPERCUE
Virtual health care—or virtual visits—
is a new technology that allows patients
to consult with physicians by smart phone
or another device from any location. This
technology is especially useful in rural
states like West Virginia where office
appointments may require an excessive
amount of travel time.
Becky Harless, the associate admin-
istrator of the ambulatory division at
Charleston Area Medical Center (CAMC)
has spent the last year ensuring this
innovative technology is accessible to
West Virginians.
After taking on telemedicine—the use
of telecommunications technology to
remotely diagnose and treat patients—
and attending a national meeting about
telemedicine, she was inspired to form a
team of professionals to implement the
plans and grow telemedicine into some-
thing much bigger for CAMC.
“We quickly realized there were so
many demands for additional services and
that we would be in a building phase for
a long time,” she says. “We built a three-
year plan based on the discussions we
had with our partners and then pushed
through most of that three-year plan in
one year.”
Boone Memorial Hospital was the first
partner location to incorporate this tech-
nology through telestroke, which provides
virtual consultations to stroke patients.
76
WEST VIRGINIA EXECUTIVE
Photo by Stephanie Young.
Because of Harless’ work, the hospital
now provides the life-saving stroke care
its patients need.
“I can still remember the feeling I got
when I found out we had performed our
first telestroke consultation,” she says.
“I was beaming with pride for the team
that created this possibility for this in-
dividual. I thought about how scary it
must be for the patient and their family
and about the relief they must feel to be
able to get this care in their local hospital
close to home.”
But the team’s work didn’t stop there.
They brought telestroke to five more hos-
pitals throughout the state and have begun
working with other similar systems to
provide more services to West Virginians
like telecardiology, which provides con-
sultations to heart disease patients.
While these accomplishments are
crucial in making care more accessible,
Harless’ biggest accomplishment is bring-
ing direct-to-consumer visits to the state.
Direct-to-consumer health care allows
patients to chat with a physician directly
on their personal devices through an app
at a time that works best for the patient,
whether that is 2 a.m. or 9 p.m. The plat-
form, which was purchased through a
license with Teladoc and was branded as
24/7 Care, is staffed by CAMC physicians
with a national network of medical prac-
titioners available when a CAMC staff