"This might be the difference of seeking health care or not."

11 miles north of the South Dakota border, a sign adorned by American flags reads, "Welcome to Lidgerwood, population: 601." Lidgerwood, North Dakota is quintessential "small town America." Their strong community bonds keep the town thriving and Main Street is home to a pharmacy, brand new grocery store, lumber, hardware store and gas station. It's also home to Sanford Health's first Virtual Care satellite clinic.

Saving patients time, travel and headaches

From Monday through part of Thursday, patients can receive care from an in-person provider at the Sanford Health Lidgerwood Clinic. From Thursday afternoon through Friday, they can be seen virtually by a provider located in Wahpeton, North Dakota – 42 miles northeast of Lidgerwood.

When patients arrive at the clinic for a virtual visit, they check in and a nurse takes the lead, performing the exam portion of the visit and connecting the patient to the remote provider. Using state-of-the-art tools, the provider can assess the patient's condition, including their heart, lungs, ears and throat, with assistance from the on-site nurse.

Although virtual care satellite clinics are new at Sanford, virtual care is not. Since 2011, Sanford Health has done 270,000+ video visits, 80,000 verbal visits and 77 originating sites receiving telemed services, saving patients an estimated 20 million miles of traveling.

Brittany Jaehning is the clinic director for several communities, including Lidgerwood. She knows the addition of a virtual care clinic in Lidgerwood will make a big difference for the community.

"If they were going to go from Lidgerwood to Wahpeton, it'd be about 45 miles. Say you're going to go to Fargo, which is a lot of our specialty care, you'd be looking at closer to an hour and 15, an hour and 20 for that commute," she said. "This might be the difference of seeking health care or not."

Virtual Care from a Provider P.O.V.

In Episode 17 of the Reimagining Rural Health podcast, Dr. Matthew Eggers and Bonnie Petersen, certified nurse practitioner, sat down with Luis Garcia MD, FACS, MBA, FACHE , president of Sanford Clinic, to discuss virtual care and how Sanford Health clinicians are connecting with patients and making a difference.

"Virtual care, as it pertains to the service I've been involved with, is reach out to patients in rural locations using technology to improve access to high quality health care. This could mean seeing a provider over the computer at your local clinic, or visits at home through another device, a phone or a table," said Dr. Eggers. "It involves medication management and follow up, making referrals to outpatient therapy or locating community mental health resources, referrals to other specialties, and collaborating with other clinic staff."

Virtual care, especially in rural America, elevates options for patients in a non-face-to-face fashion so they can get their needs satisfied. And satisfaction seems to be the consensus.

"We've had a lot of positive feedback from patients and their families as well as clinic staff. Not every patient is going to prefer seeing a provider over the computer or some other device at home, but for the most part, the feedback has been very positive, and they appreciate having this service being available to them locally," said Dr. Matthew Eggers. "I think patients are very engaging. I think as long as you're showing them that you're listening to them and their needs and they feel that their needs are being met during a visit, they're very engaging now matter the age."

When asked about fostering the relationship so technology doesn't get in the way and making sure the visit is as meaningful as a face-to-face interaction, Bonnie Petersen said, "I think that we engage with that patient through a virtual visit the same way that we do with that urgent care visit. We tailor that visit to what they are looking for and how we can help them with that."

Virtual Care from a Patient P.O.V.

For patients and families like Kellie Wettstein, having access to health care is deeply personal.

"We lost our son, Jonah, last September. He was three and a half. So Jonah was epileptic and was later diagnosed with Dravet syndrome. We doctored and tried to figure a lot of things out, but with those pieces of Dravet, our local clinic came in huge," Wettstein said.

"There's a piece of mind in walking in the clinic. They greet you by name, ask how you're doing, and you sit in the waiting room, probably with three other people that you know already. It eased a lot of anxiety on our end." – Kellie Wettstein

Briana Spellerberg, director of nursing for Sargent County District Health, witnesses both the strengths and challenges of living in a rural close-knit community.

"Bringing virtual care to Lidgerwood and smaller communities is huge because it's going to eliminate a drive for people," Spellerberg said. "By offering a different way to get more services to those communities, it's really going to make an impact on the overall health of these communities and keep people in these communities."

Bringing equitable access to world-class care no matter the zip code

In August 2022, Sanford Health broke ground on a state-of-the-art virtual care center, a 60,000-square-foot facility that will change the way care is delivered to rural America and to serve as a hub for a network of virtual clinics.

Sharlene Thompson, part of Sanford's virtual care team, is one of the people connecting the dots in rural America and providing health care.

"Every community has a different need and has a different footprint and a different patient population and dynamics," she said. "So when we determine what our next satellite site or step forward is, it absolutely will look different than Lidgerwood, which is exciting because we are going to meet the community need versus just really a copy and paste."

Click the photo below to listen to the conversation: