VE
The Invermere
he
bi V
si
nc
ALLEY A CHO
6
th 7 1 y r Februa 2016
7
0 Vo l e u s . 60 Is
More local athletes qualify for BC Games
X
BERNIE RAVEN CHRIS RAVEN 1-866-598-7415 TEAMRAVEN.CA Offices in Panorama, Invermere & Fairmont
cave discovered 16 Bat in Banff National Park
1
$
The curling action continued at the Invermere Curling Centre this past Alberta Family Day long weekend when the Men’s Spiel took over the ice from February 12th to 14th. PHOTO BY BREANNE MASSEY
05 INCLUDES GST
Maxwell Realty Invermere
PUBLICATIONS MAIL REGISTRATION NO. 7856
Telehealth clinics help local post-transplant patient BREANNE MASSEY breanne@invermerevalleyecho.com
three or four times a year, I now go to Cranbrook three times a year and once a year to Trail.” Sellers is merely one of many Interior Health patients who travel long distancThe physical, emotional and financial strain of travelling to urban areas for es for specialty appointments. Kim McDuff, transplant redesign project co-ordinator, and her colleagues at dialysis has forced kidney disease patients to become prisoners of the road, but the Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital Kidney Transplant Clinic in Trail, a 56-year-old Upper Columbia Valley resident could become the face for change in the East Kootenay region through the use of a telehealth clinic pilot program. identified a strong desire to develop alternative options for patients who are reKirt Sellers has begun travelling to the East Kootenay Regional Hospital (EKRH) quired to drive long distances for follow up appointments. The staff used this as the foundation for the developing a pilot program that in Cranbrook to use an Interior Health-based video conTelehealth offers a way allows post-transplant patients to attend their follow up ference format (commonly known to health care proclinic appointments in Cranbrook, connecting to Trail fessionals as telehealth clinics). The telehealth clinics to provide adequate and telehealth. allow Sellers to follow up with a Trail-based health care continuous care for post-transplant through “Telehealth offers a way to provide adequate and conteam, which includes a doctor, a social worker and a tinuous care for post-transplant patients not living in transplant nurse, as opposed to travelling 362 kilome- patients not living in Trail. KIM MCDUFF Trail,” said Ms. McDuff in a recent press release. tres (four hours each way) to Trail to meet with the TRAIL KIDNEY TRANSPLANT CLINIC The telehealth pilot program ran from November 2014 team in person for routine follow up post-kidney transto May 2015 with 12 patients using the service. The appointments were offered in plant appointments. “With a focus on telehealth, I have certainly saved money in the sense that collaboration with Interior Health and BC Transplant. The follow up appointments are conducted at the EKRH in Cranbrook, which as a part of my renal follow up, they like to meet with me every three months, which translates to roughly four times annually which is a part of the normal allows renal nurse Georgi Winger, to check a patient’s blood pressure, weight, See A3 protocol,” explained Mr. Sellers. “Instead of going to Trail to meet with them
JOIN THE MOVEMENT AGAINST BULLYING ON FEBRUARY 24 Purchase a Pink Shirt at London Drugs or pinkshirtday.ca to support anti-bullying programs in B.C.
PINKSHIRTDAY.CA
@pinkshirtday #pinkshirtday