Connect with us

Vermont

Opinion — Christine Hallquist: Telehealth can transform health care in Vermont

Published

on

Opinion — Christine Hallquist: Telehealth can transform health care in Vermont


This commentary is by Christine Hallquist of Burlington. She was the Democratic nominee for Vermont governor in 2018, and was CEO of the Vermont Electric Cooperative for 13 years.

You’re home alone when you start having pain and tightness in your chest. It’s spreading to your shoulder, and you’re nauseous. You’re having a heart attack, and if you don’t get help immediately, it may be too late. The first thing you should do is call 911, which requires a reliable phone and/or broadband connection. Unfortunately, in Vermont, not everyone has one yet.

Vermont Community Broadband Board is working to change that, which will give every Vermonter access to telehealth. If you’re at high risk for a heart attack, your doctor might recommend virtual monitoring, which would automatically alert first responders of a heart attack. And that is just one of the benefits and ways that telehealth can revolutionize health care for Vermonters. 

In Vermont, almost everyone has insurance, but many can’t find or afford care. Vermonters pay some of the highest prices nationwide for individual health coverage. The monthly cost of a typical plan on the state’s insurance marketplace has doubled over the past six years — from $474 to $948. Nine of the state’s 14 hospitals are losing money, and the state’s largest insurer is struggling to remain solvent. 

“There is no hospital in Vermont that is not in jeopardy,” said Dr. Bruce Hamory, who authored a recent report on Vermont’s health care system. Hamory’s recommendation: push as much care out of the hospitals as possible and regionalize Vermont’s siloed hospital system.

Advertisement

Telehealth can transform health care in Vermont. It enables patients to connect with health care providers remotely. This can greatly reduce barriers to care for rural residents, who often face significant challenges due to long distances to health care facilities. 

By enabling regular check-ins and remote monitoring of chronic conditions, complications can be caught early, allowing for prompt intervention and preventing serious issues. Patients can quickly consult with specialists located far away, reducing wait times and expediting diagnosis and treatment plans. Telehealth check-ins and remote monitoring after hospitalization can help recovery, identify complications early and prevent unnecessary readmissions. 

Telehealth is safer. Less travel means fewer car accidents and less pollution. It also means less disease spread, crucial for the chronically ill, pregnant, elderly or immuno-compromised 

Telemedicine can connect patients experiencing emergencies with providers for immediate assessment and guidance, leading to faster and more appropriate interventions. Real-time reporting of vitals, such as temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate and blood pressure during transport helps reduce unnecessary visits and enables professionals to prepare for intake. 

Patients with heart failure can use wearable devices to monitor vital signs and be constantly reviewed using artificial intelligence. This can trigger intervention, including rapid evaluation of stroke symptoms by neurologists, leading to faster diagnosis and treatment, potentially minimizing neurological damage. Remote monitoring can also be used for patients with epilepsy, and orthodontists are using a piece of hardware in a patient’s mouth to monitor for more than 137 possible issues that can arise.

Advertisement

Teletherapy can provide mental health services to people who might otherwise not get treatment due to stigma or geographic barriers, potentially preventing crises. Teledermatology allows individuals to share images of skin abnormalities remotely, facilitating early diagnosis of potentially serious conditions, such as cancer. 

Internet access is increasingly recognized as a “super determinant” of health. Additional benefits include the ability to have family members or caregivers at a patient’s appointment, even if they live far away. And seeing a patient in their home gives providers a more complete picture of the patient’s life in order to provide more personalized care. 

Telehealth is also better for providers. Fewer physical facilities mean lower costs. Telehealth will reduce unnecessary/expensive emergency room visits because of increased preventive care. Continuous patient monitoring and quick detection will reduce expensive interventions. 

It’s important to understand there is only one technology that can meet the demands of telehealth: fiber-optic networks. Their high speed, reliability, low latency, immense bandwidth capacity and resistance to interference allow faster data transmission with minimal signal degradation. 

Fiber optics allow for virtually infinite capacity, much more than DSL, wireless, cable, or low earth orbit satellite, and reliably transfer large files, real-time video and real-time monitoring of vitals. Fiber-optic networks are much faster and less prone to interference, ensuring a stable and consistent connection. The last thing you want when you are monitoring a patient is an interruption in the data stream. 

Advertisement

Fiber-optic networks can carry large volumes of data without significant performance degradation. Signal quality remains high over long distances, allowing it to perform in extreme weather conditions and emergencies. And fiber lasts significantly longer than other cable types like copper. 

Fiber-optic networks are scalable and can be upgraded without requiring extensive infrastructure changes, ensuring long-term adaptability. Additionally, the rapid advancements in fiber-optic technology hardware make them ready to support new standards and applications, paving the way for future growth and innovation, as they enable telehealth to revive the sustainability and accessibility of Vermont’s health care system.





Source link

Advertisement

Vermont

Noah Kahan, Vermont consumers and venues voice support for ticket resale limits

Published

on


A movement to limit the resale price of concert and event tickets is growing in Vermont.Last Thursday, renowned Vermont singer Noah Kahan submitted a video to a state Senate committee voicing his support of H.512. The bill passed the House last month. “This bill is a critical step in eliminating predatory resale behaviors and offering promoters a great solution for exchanging and reselling tickets in a safe marketplace,” the Strafford native said to lawmakers.The bill would limit the resale of tickets to 110% of the value they were originally purchased at. Other Vermonter’s testified that day and said they found themselves purchasing tickets online, not from the event’s venue or artist. They said the price was way above the original rate. “Now I was not just mad at myself, but I was mad at this person who did it to me,” Marina Cole of Wheelock told lawmakers. In 2024, the National Association of Ticket Brokers told NBC 5 that they were against price caps, which this bill is currently pursuing.”We have really good businesspeople who are doing the right thing,” Executive Director Gary Adler said at the time. The bill, as passed by the House, would charge the Vermont Attorney General’s Office with enforcing the resale cap. The office would have the authority to conduct audits, issue penalties and revoke a reseller’s license. Resale licenses would be a new requirement under the current bill. “I suspect the enforcement won’t be easy,” executive director of the Champlain Valley Exposition Tim Shea said Monday. “But it’s something we’re looking to follow and advocate for the right ticket buyer.”Shea said the Expo has been approached by consumers who have faced high resale prices and even some cases of ticket fraud through online reselling. He believes the legislation would help avoid those issues and keep revenues for Vermont venues and artists within the state. “When tickets are marked up to the level, they are that money’s going out of Vermont. It’s not staying here. It’s not going to the promoter. It’s not going to the concessioners on the ground,” Shea said. The bill is currently being reviewed by the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing, and General Affairs.

A movement to limit the resale price of concert and event tickets is growing in Vermont.

Last Thursday, renowned Vermont singer Noah Kahan submitted a video to a state Senate committee voicing his support of H.512. The bill passed the House last month.

Advertisement

“This bill is a critical step in eliminating predatory resale behaviors and offering promoters a great solution for exchanging and reselling tickets in a safe marketplace,” the Strafford native said to lawmakers.

The bill would limit the resale of tickets to 110% of the value they were originally purchased at. Other Vermonter’s testified that day and said they found themselves purchasing tickets online, not from the event’s venue or artist. They said the price was way above the original rate.

“Now I was not just mad at myself, but I was mad at this person who did it to me,” Marina Cole of Wheelock told lawmakers.

Advertisement

In 2024, the National Association of Ticket Brokers told NBC 5 that they were against price caps, which this bill is currently pursuing.

“We have really good businesspeople who are doing the right thing,” Executive Director Gary Adler said at the time.

The bill, as passed by the House, would charge the Vermont Attorney General’s Office with enforcing the resale cap.

The office would have the authority to conduct audits, issue penalties and revoke a reseller’s license. Resale licenses would be a new requirement under the current bill.

“I suspect the enforcement won’t be easy,” executive director of the Champlain Valley Exposition Tim Shea said Monday. “But it’s something we’re looking to follow and advocate for the right ticket buyer.”

Advertisement

Shea said the Expo has been approached by consumers who have faced high resale prices and even some cases of ticket fraud through online reselling. He believes the legislation would help avoid those issues and keep revenues for Vermont venues and artists within the state.

“When tickets are marked up to the level, they are that money’s going out of Vermont. It’s not staying here. It’s not going to the promoter. It’s not going to the concessioners on the ground,” Shea said.

The bill is currently being reviewed by the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing, and General Affairs.



Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Vermont

Meet the 95-year-old Vermont herbarium volunteer who had a fern named for her

Published

on

Meet the 95-year-old Vermont herbarium volunteer who had a fern named for her


BURLINGTON, Vt. (InvestigateTV) — For 28 years, Hilda White has shown up at the University of Vermont’s Pringle Herbarium to do a job most people have never heard of: mounting plants.

Now 95 years old, White has carefully preserved more than 50,000 plant specimens — pressing and affixing them to archival paper so they can be studied and referenced for generations to come.

“If I mount the plants, the plants will be around for hundreds of years, barring any unforeseen accidents or anything,” White said.

Birthday gift unlike any other

For her 95th birthday, the herbarium gave her a gift unlike any other: a newly discovered fern, found in Colombia in 2023, was officially named for her.

Advertisement

The plant — a Christmas fern — was discovered by Wes Testo, now the director of the Pringle Herbarium collection, during a research trip to South America.

“I was walking through the forest there, and I saw this just spectacular fern,” Testo said. “I knew immediately it was something I hadn’t seen before.”

After further research confirmed it was a species new to science, Testo and his colleagues decided to name it for White: Polystichum hildae.

“Oh, I was absolutely blown away,” White said when she learned of the honor.

“You can’t imagine, I cried all afternoon.”

Advertisement

‘Library for plants’

White’s work at the herbarium is kind of a library for plants.

“I can’t draw, but this is my artistic outlet,” she said.

Testo said White’s contributions have been essential to the research conducted in the collection, which now houses 400,000 plant specimens in a single room.

“Hilda mounted a huge amount of the specimens you see here,” Testo said. “Her contributions are absolutely essential to the research we do here.”

The collection’s survival is not something White or Testo take for granted. In 2017, a fire broke out at Torrey Hall, where the collection was housed at the time. Testo was in South America doing research when he received word.

Advertisement

“All I could see from an email in Colombia — the roof on fire. I thought my whole Ph.D. was going up in flames along with the whole collection here,” Testo said.

White was on her way into work when the fire broke out. Staff and volunteers, including White, worked to restore and remount the damaged plants. The collection has since been relocated to the Jeffords Building.

No plans to stop

White says she has no plans to stop.

“Oh no! I’ll be here as long as I can,” she said.

And when asked what she planned to give Testo for his birthday in return for the honor of having a plant named after her, White kept it simple.

Advertisement

“He just got good wishes!”

Read the full story.



Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Vermont

Swanton honors WWI soldier with new historic marker

Published

on

Swanton honors WWI soldier with new historic marker


A new roadside historic marker was unveiled outside Riverside Cemetery, honoring Cpl. Leonard A. Lord, the first Vermonter killed in action during World War I.The Vermont Division for Historic Preservation dedicated the marker during a ceremony held at the site, recognizing Lord’s service and sacrifice more than a century after his death.Lord was killed in April 1918 in France during heavy artillery fire while serving with the 26th “Yankee” Division. He had enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1917 at Fort Ethan Allen.After his death overseas, Lord’s remains were later returned to Swanton in 1921 and reinterred at Riverside Cemetery, just yards from where the new marker now stands.Officials say the marker is part of Vermont’s long-running effort to preserve local history and highlight individuals who shaped the state’s past.U.S. Army SSgt. Stephen Prochniak reflected on the importance of remembrance.“History is alive in all of us,” Prochniak said. “It’s something that will probably be here longer than any of us are alive. And that’s important. It preserves it not just for us, but for our kids and their kids.”The marker now stands as the 335th installed through the state’s historic preservation program.

A new roadside historic marker was unveiled outside Riverside Cemetery, honoring Cpl. Leonard A. Lord, the first Vermonter killed in action during World War I.

The Vermont Division for Historic Preservation dedicated the marker during a ceremony held at the site, recognizing Lord’s service and sacrifice more than a century after his death.

Advertisement

Lord was killed in April 1918 in France during heavy artillery fire while serving with the 26th “Yankee” Division. He had enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1917 at Fort Ethan Allen.

After his death overseas, Lord’s remains were later returned to Swanton in 1921 and reinterred at Riverside Cemetery, just yards from where the new marker now stands.

Officials say the marker is part of Vermont’s long-running effort to preserve local history and highlight individuals who shaped the state’s past.

Advertisement

U.S. Army SSgt. Stephen Prochniak reflected on the importance of remembrance.

“History is alive in all of us,” Prochniak said. “It’s something that will probably be here longer than any of us are alive. And that’s important. It preserves it not just for us, but for our kids and their kids.”

The marker now stands as the 335th installed through the state’s historic preservation program.



Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading
Advertisement

Trending