St. Anthony Hospital Expanding Virtual Doctor Program

St Anthony Hospital in Oklahoma City is expanding its tele-medicine program where doctors can diagnose patients remotely using cameras.

Right now, the hospital serves about 3,100 patients a year through its video doctor visits.

The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture just awarded the hospital a more than $450,000 grant to serve more rural patients.

The money will upgrade software and cameras and expanded its remote doctor visits by around 3400 patients in the first year of expansion.

With so many rural hospitals and specialty clinics closing in Oklahoma, St. Anthony thinks having more tele-medicine partners will help rural facilities.

"Really what our focus is trying to do is create an avenue to be able to keep more on those services in those rural communities," says St. Anthony CEO Kyle Nondorf.

Right now, St. Anthony tele-medicine is used for many in-patient visits, the hospital says it will be able to serve more outpatient visitors.

That includes adding a hospital in western Oklahoma to its program.