(Credits: Courtesy AIM Services, 2023)
AIM's Director of Nursing Brandy Donbeck checks vital signs on John Thurber, one of the people AIM supports. Staff member Lyle Burton looks on.
AIM Services Inc. announced the launch of a telehealth partnership with StationMD, thanks to a grant of the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation and other funders who are helping to purchase the supplies and equipment.
The new service will be utilized within AIM’s 23 certified residential programs for people with developmental and intellectual disabilities, in an effort to reduce unnecessary urgent care and emergency room visits, press materials said.
StationMD is a telehealth system started by an emergency room physician, especially to care for individuals with disabilities. People with intellectual and developmental disabilities visit the ER significantly more than other populations.
Bo Goliber, AIM’s chief development officer, said in an interview the service is aimed primarily at physical health needs of the people AIM serves, but it also plays into the mental health needs of some and reduces the stress caused by an emergency room or urgent care visit.
“Say we are serving someone who does not speak using words and communicates in a less-traditional way,” Goliber said, “being able to evaluate their medical health by ruling out things" on a video chat, saves that trip to the emergency room if the medical condition is minor.
"There are definitely side benefits to their mental health, but the diagnosis is medical in nature,” Goliber said.
The physicians at StationMD can call ahead to the emergency room or doctor’s office to alert them if a patient does need to be seen, press materials said..
“Non-emergent diagnoses, such as UTIs and ear infections, and the ability to communicate directly with a physician will create a more relaxed experience for all involved. It will keep the people we serve in their homes, which is where we all would prefer to be when we’re not feeling well,” Brandy Donbeck, AIM’s Director of Nursing, said in a statement.
Using the funding, AIM has bought iPads and other communications tools to help the staff and those they serve.
“And then there’s some medical equipment, testing strips and stethoscopes and actual home diagnostics that the nursing staff will be guided through and feed the information back to the doctor,” Goliber said.
Officials say they expect better healthcare overall as the patients and doctors get to know one another. As well, doctors who see a patient online can phone ahead to the doctor’s office or emergency room and speak with doctors there if the patient must be seen, according to the press materials.
“I love telehealth and StationMD,” said John Thurber, one of the people supported by AIM. He is mobile only using a wheelchair.
“I can see a doctor from my bed comfortably, without sitting in the waiting room when I’m already not feeling well,” Thurber said in the statement.
This new technology not only helps the sick individual but helps the residential homes with staffing at a time when they face staffing shortages, Goliber said. The online consultations should mean fewer trips to the emergency room for the staff who accompany the patients.
"It's keeping people in the homes instead of pulling them out to take one person to the emergency room or urgent care," Goliber said.
A grant from the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation has made this partnership possible with StationMD for three years, but Goliber said AIM is already seeing how this service will need to become part of the organization's long-term planning and will need budgetary support.
On top of the money from Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, a grant from CAPCOM to help purchase equipment, and money from the Town of Wilton COVID Nonprofit Funding and Saratoga County COVID Nonprofit Funding all added to the funding.
The Mother Mother Cabrini Health Foundation provides grants “to improve the health and wellbeing of vulnerable New Yorkers, bolster the health outcomes of diverse communities, eliminate barriers to care, and bridge gaps in health services,” their website says.