When you think of healthcare, the images that come to mind are likely doctors, nurses, X-ray technicians, and other medical professionals who aim to understand, diagnose, and heal patients’ ailments.
An audiovisual expert likely isn’t in that mix of mental pictures. But—especially with telehealth on the rise—AV professionals like Capers P. Harper III this month’s AVNation ICON, play a critical role in providing access to healthcare. During the pandemic, he co-led a Rapid Improvement Team that developed and implemented a provider-to-patient telemedicine architecture for 1,100 providers across 280 departments in nine weeks.
“Health care is so multifaceted; it only comes together when all the pieces fit together,” Harper says.
Harper works for Trinity Health, one of the nation’s largest not-for-profit Catholic healthcare systems. Managing the Regional Telemedicine Operations, he’s responsible for keeping Trinity’s Virtual Care and Digital Health systems running at Loyola Medicine in Illinois and Saint Joseph Health System in Indiana.
In addition, he provides operational, technical, and consultative support of remote and communication health services for the Illinois Department of Public Health’s Region 8 emergency preparedness healthcare coalition.
Telemedicine: From Space to Rural to Everywhere Online
Harper’s work in telemedicine began more than a decade ago, training clinicians and staff on the proper use and best practices of telemedicine at Covenant HealthCare in Saginaw, Michigan. At the time, remote doctor visits were offered primarily in rural communities where there was a lack of physicians, and patients faced a long drive to see one.
Harper says telemedicine is much older than people may realize; it has been around in some form for decades. For example, NASA implemented telemedicine in the space program’s early days to provide health care to astronauts during long orbital and extended exploration missions. In the early eighties, the U.S. military used telemedicine to provide care to military personnel around the world via global satellite networks.
As high-speed Internet became widely available, efforts ramped up to make telehealth more accessible online. Then, the pandemic ushered in a whole new era, as lockdowns and concerns about spreading COVID-19 pushed remote doctor visits into greater use.
At Loyola, Harper was at the forefront of expanding access in response to COVID. He co-led a Rapid Improvement Team in developing and implementing an integrated provider-to-patient telemedicine architecture for electronic medical records. Within nine weeks, that system was in place, encompassing over 1,100 providers across 280 regional departments.
Cameras And Mics Are The Easy Part
Telemedicine, Harper notes, involves much more than making sure the camera functions. Business operations, technical logistics, patient privacy, and clinic workflow all come into play. Plus, there are multiple models for telemedicine, such as provider-to-patients, on-demand, direct-to-consumer, clinic-to-clinic, acute care, and emergency management.
“There is a regulatory and legislative side of that as well,” Harper says. “Not every state treats telemedicine the same.”
For example, in New Jersey, physicians can meet a new patient for the first time through a virtual visit, but in Texas, that first visit must happen in person. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, many of these rules have been under constant regulatory review.
Physicians also must be licensed for the state the patient is in!
Preparing for emergencies
Hospitals play a major role in emergency management, caring for the ill and injured. But they can also be susceptible to emergencies themselves. They must be equipped to withstand power outages, utility failures, and disruptive weather events, and their communication technology, like the facility itself, must work under the worst conditions.
With that in mind, a few years ago, Loyola created its Incident Command Center (ICC), and once again, Harper took a lead role. The idea behind the ICC is that any number of emergencies can arise in the region – floods, hazardous spills, tornadoes, active shooters – and the medical center needs to work closely with emergency officials in such situations.
In setting up the ICC, Loyola worked with CTI, a leading custom audio-visual systems integration solutions specialist. (CTI nominated Harper for the ICONS award.) Among many other features, the ICC has:
- Four large wall-mounted monitors, one of which is an interactive/touch screen.
- Integrated digital-signal-processing powered ceiling audio speakers.
- Integrated room PC with bi-directional audio and video via PTZ cameras for remote communications and collaboration.
- Wall-mounted TVs for monitoring network news and weather.
“CTI has professionals who do these sorts of things,” Harper says. “My technical background allowed me to get in the weeds with them and allowed us to have a partnership. CTI has a range of professionals who do this across the country.”
For someone who didn’t expect his career to lead him into health care, Harper has come to enjoy and revel in his role. On his LinkedIn profile, he sums up an overarching philosophy that drives him:
“As a ‘big-picture’ thinker, I’ve developed a knack for identifying trends and anticipating concerns and consequences,” he writes. “I love finding new tools and figuring out how they can make life more productive.”
That’s the kind of approach to life that drives an AVNation ICON.
