Overnight Physician Staffing at Critical Access Hospitals

Critical access hospitals have a unique set of challenges as they work to take care of those that live in the surrounding communities. Horizon Virtual works with hospital employees to provide a virtual solution for overnight physicians that are needed to staff critical access hospitals. We do this by providing virtual overnight physicians to rural hospitals. 

Challenges Critical Access Hospitals Experience

Critical access hospitals serve rural communities and struggle with low occupancy rates in their hospitals. That means they must limit the number of beds, staff, and other costs to keep the overhead low. This can make it difficult to recruit and keep medical staff, particularly doctors. Often times, doctors would rather be at higher-volume hospitals that can offer greater benefits and access to advanced medical equipment. 

It can be a hard enough challenge to find doctors that will staff the hospitals during the day. Overnight hospitalists are even more difficult to find. These doctors may not even live close to the hospitals they are covering, which can cause a drain on them. 

Here at Horizon Virtual, we understand that rural hospitals serve a great need for their local communities. That’s why we offer virtual overnight physician solutions for all hospitals, no matter what size. 

Benefits of Using Virtual Overnight Physicians

There are many benefits to trusting your patient care to one of our virtual doctors. This includes: 

  • Reduced patient wait times to see a doctor. 
  • Lower overhead costs than staffing a full-time physician.
  • Ability to handle more complex cases rather than referring to larger hospitals.
  • Increase revenue opportunities. 
  • Multi-location coverage for hospital networks. 
  • Improves hospitalist retention rates. 

Investing in Horizon Virtual will allow your hospital to meet patient needs faster with less overhead. Our goal is to help you provide the community with the resources it needs for emergent medical care. 

What Technology is Needed? 

We will provide you with all of the equipment & training you need for the overnight hospitalist to evaluate the patient remotely. We’ll supply you with a moveable telehealth cart that can be rolled into any room of the hospital. The telehealth cart has a high-definition camera, virtual stethoscope, and screen for the doctor to talk to the medical team and patient. You can see the full telehealth cart here

The only thing you will need to run the equipment is a wi-fi connection and a power source to recharge the unit during the day. There is no additional installation needed to use our telehealth cart. 

How it Works

Our telehealth hospitalists are available from 7 pm-7 am to handle acute medical changes that happen in patients during those hours. These hours may be flexible, depending on your specific needs. To contact the doctor, the medical team will page Horizon Virtual. Horizon Virtual’s On-Call Physician will login remotely to the telehealth cart. The overnight physician will guide the PA or nursing staff throughout the entire process. 

After the examination is completed, the on-call doctor will instruct the medical staff which additional tests need to be ordered. Also, they will create a treatment plan for the patient. We make it easy for your team to confidently treat patients from beginning to end. 

Contact Horizon Virtual Today

Please contact the Darin Willardsen, M.D. at Horizon Virtual today to schedule a discoveryovernight physician staffing. Our virtual system allows critical access hospitals the telehealth solutions they need. Our team will work directly with you to get the necessary equipment and train your staff on how to implement our telehealth system. 

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