The best in medicine is a phone call away

Tillery's The Curin' House goes high-tech with new medical link

RICHARD GOULD HEARLD STAFF WRITER

TILLERY - Some of North Carolina's foremost dermatologists, endocrinologists and pediatric cardiologists are seeing patients in Tillery.

Now, instead of driving to Greenville to be seen by medical specialists, Tillery residents can just drive over to The Curin' House. This unassuming building houses a cutting-edge medical diagnostic telemedicine unit.

Patients sitting in Tillery's People's Clinic can be examined and diagnosed by a doctor who may be hundreds or even thousands of miles away.

It works like this: A patient comes to the clinic and the nurse on duty turns on the monitor and the camera, the distant doctor appears on the screen and the examination begins.

The nurse performs the examination using stethoscopes, eye and ear scopes and other diagnostic tools commonly used in medical examinations.

The only difference is that these instruments are wired to the system and are transmitting all of their information in stunning clarity directly to the specialist miles away, who guides the nurse and communicates directly to the patient.

Breaking the mold

On Wednesday night, the Concerned Citizens of Tillery held an open house to unveil the Tillery People's Clinic's new telemedicine unit to an audience that included Congressman G.K. Butterfield, N.C. Sen. Ed Jones and a room filled with the medical professionals and citizens of Tillery, who worked together to bring this technology to the community.

The telemedicine center was made possible by a grant from the Golden LEAF Foundation, which was created in 1999 to help administer North Carolina's share of the cigarette manufacturers' settlement.

The telemedicine equipment is expensive, and without the Golden LEAF grant the unit would have been impossible. Security and patient confidentiality are vitally important, which is why the telemedicine unit uses the same type of secure transmission link that banks use for ATMs to protect their sensitive data.

That data connection alone costs approximately $650 dollars per month. Though the ancillary costs associated with telemedicine are considerable, none of these additional costs will be passed on to the patients. They will all be covered by The Golden LEAF grant.

Tillery's telemedicine unit is operated by the Telemedicine Center at Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, where more than 40 doctors access the center.

Though the Golden LEAF grant has supported the instillation of telemedicine units in three other small North Carolina towns, Tillery is unique because it is the only community center to receive one of the units. All the others are in hospitals or medical centers.

One of several health care options in Tillery

Though it is the newest tool in Tillery's community healthcare network, telemedicine is certainly not the only way residents help keep one another healthy. Though it had humble beginnings as a potato curing house in the early ‘30's during The New Deal, The Curin' House has been serving the health needs of Tillery since 1987.

Because the civic groups Concerned Citizens of Tillery and the Area Wide Heath Committee believe that access to good health care is a basic human right, they have worked tirelessly to offer free medical services to the members of their community.

These services include free medical treatment from volunteer doctors and medical staff at the Third Wednesday Evening Clinic, as well as the senior citizen flu shot clinic and the Occupational Therapy Wellness Program, which sends therapists to the homes of people who need their services.

Another of Tillery's grassroots community health efforts is the group Sistahs United for Breast Cancer Awareness, whose members are trained as lay health advisors. They go into the community to create awareness and to ensure that those affected by the disease are seeking and receiving proper medical attention.

Wednesday night, Evelyn Crowell, one of the first patients to take advantage of Tillery's telemedicine unit, addressed the crowd to express her appreciation for the Tillery People's Clinic. “I do not have to worry if I am rich or poor. I am treated like a person, not a number,” she said. “The TLC they prescribe, with a little love to wash it down, can go a long way.”