When patients in Colorado’s remote Yampa Valley needed to see a specialist, the trip often meant a daylong journey to Denver: hours on the road, time off work, child care arrangements and the cost of gas. Now, they can log in for a virtual visit with a neurologist, maternal-fetal medicine expert or psychiatrist — all without leaving town.

“It not only saves the patient time and money,” Laura Sehnert, MD, chief medical officer at UCHealth Yampa Valley Medical Center in Steamboat Springs, told Becker’s. “It often makes them more willing to receive the care.” From Wyoming to Colorado, Minnesota to Michigan, rural hospitals are quietly building a new model for access — one that uses technology not to replace care, but to bring care closer to home, closing long-standing gaps in access. From br

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