WPost Cites Mission in Telehealth Report

WPost Cites Mission in Telehealth Report

Sharon Daley, director of Maine Seacoast Mission’s Island Health Services, walks toward the Sunbeam, the Maine Seacoast Mission’s service boat, in Northeast Harbor, Maine, in August. (Ellie Markovitch/for The Washington Post)

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Patients and doctors who embraced telehealth during the pandemic fear it will become harder to access

By Frances Stead SellersSeptember 10, 2021 at 11:53 p.m. EDT

The most remote island communities have long relied on the nonprofit Maine Seacoast Mission to show up in its 75-foot steel-hulled floating clinic, the Sunbeam V.

The mission’s nurse, Sharon Daley, coordinates with mainland doctors, sometimes consulting with out-of-state specialists like vascular neurologist Anand Viswanathan of Massachusetts General Hospital, who accompanied her on a recent trip to meet patients he usually sees online.

Daley’s experience with everything from unreliable Internet access to physicians’ state-based licensing arrangements is central to a today’s debates in Washington. But day-to-day, her focus is less on policy than on integrating the tools of technology with the traditions of good care — a challenge that all practitioners face as they adapt to telehealth.

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