Innovation and Patient Care
I want to thank our patients for working with us as we navigate uncharted conditions and challenges during this COVID-19 pandemic. At University Medical Center, we continue to explore new and innovative ways to care for our patients.
UMC has significantly increased provision of daytime telemedicine appointments, and we have added evening telemedicine hours to improve access for patients who work during the day. We are converting in-person doctor visits to telemedicine visits to triage sick patients, and we are offering them for patients who might not be sick but are worried about getting out and coming into a health-care facility at this time.
In addition to urgent and acute conditions, telemedicine visits are also a good way for patients to keep up with regular and routine health needs during this COVID-19 outbreak. It’s important that you continue to take care of chronic conditions you might have, like diabetes and high blood pressure, as well as routine health needs – and telemedicine is a good way to do it.
Telemedicine visits can be conducted with patients via computer with video and audio, or with an iPhone using Facetime. If these options aren’t available to you, our physicians can conduct a patient visit via telephone. To schedule a telemedicine appointment, contact your UMC location.
We are hosting weekly virtual UMC Town Halls to provide a venue for our patients and the community to receive important and factual information on a regular basis from UMC physicians and health experts.
We have partnered with WVUA to provide these town halls, which take place every Friday at 2 pm on UMC’s Facebook page and are hosted by Dr. Tom Weida, chief medical officer at UMC. We also answer questions from our patients and the community submitted via the UMC website.
The town halls provide updates about the COVID-19 pandemic and what we are doing at UMC to care for those impacted, either directly or indirectly, by the COVID-19 outbreak. The first town hall was held April 10 and focused on COVID-19 and primary care. The topic for this Friday is COVID-19 and pediatrics, and future topics will include mental health care and geriatrics, among others.
Anticipating a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) for our doctors, nurses and other health-care providers, the UA College of Community Health Sciences, which operates UMC, reached out to UA’s College of Engineering and Culverhouse College of Commerce. This three-college collaborative effort resulted in a 3D-printing project that has produced protective face shields for health care workers locally, at UMC and DCH Health System in Tuscaloosa, as well as regionally at UAB Hospital in Birmingham.
We also hope to incorporate a level of precision health for our patients, empowering them to better self-manage their health, and to continue this in the future as part of our population health endeavors.
CCHS researchers have been working to help UMC patients reduce their hypertension, or high blood pressure, with the help of an app. The researchers developed the mobile health app, called HYPE, in collaboration with the UA Center for Advanced Public Safety. HYPE is a free mobile app available on both iOS and Android platforms that provides evidenced-based lifestyle education and allows users to download and print their health information, including blood pressure, heart rate, weight, physical activity and medications being taken, to bring with them to doctor visits.
University Medical Center will continue to be innovative, and we will continue to adapt to changing local, national and international circumstances, in our efforts to provide high-quality and accessible health care for our patients.
University Medical Center is operated by the College of Community Health Sciences.