Top Clinical Telemedicine Provider and Nation’s Leader for Stroke Care Answers the Call at Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Specialists On Call, Inc. (SOC), announced today that it recently delivered its 35,000^th emergency teleneurology consultation since the company’s inception. This achievement in patient volume is unprecedented for any telemedicine company as well as for any single bricks and mortar healthcare facility. SOC reached this milestone when they responded to a neurologic emergency at Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center in San Luis Obispo, California. Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center is a 200 bed facility and a Primary Stroke Center that has used SOC’s teleneurology service for nearly a year and a half.

“It’s incredibly gratifying to build a company that helps so many people,” remarked Specialists On Call CEO, Joe Peterson, M.D. “We don’t think anyone’s healthcare should be limited by time of day or their location and we’re committed to delivering the country’s best specialists immediately to the patients who need them most.”

Specialists On Call provides hospitals nationwide with immediate 24/7/365 access to a select cadre of board certified neurologists via telemedicine. With SOC’s neurologists supporting local ED and inpatient physicians, hospitals are able to treat neurologic emergencies and stroke patients with greater efficiency and effectiveness.

“With the advantages of the speed of doing a video consult time is on our side,” added SOC neurologist, Todd Samuels, M.D. “We’re able to see the patients much faster. Gather the same information in a much quicker amount of time and provide very effective care in a much more timely manner. And I know that because I’ve been on both sides of the situation. I’ve been a community neurologist and I know for emergency situations I can provide much more timely care as a teleneurologist than I can as a bedside neurologist.”

By leveraging the skills of its expert neurologists, SOC helps hospitals and health systems treat neurologic emergencies and stroke patients with greater efficiency and effectiveness. Each month, SOC provides over 1,200 emergency consultations to more than 150 hospitals across 17 states. With access to around-the-clock on-call neurology coverage, these facilities among others have demonstrated increased tPA administration rates as well as reduced length of stay for stroke patients. Since 2006, SOC has helped oversee the administration of tPA to more than 1,888 eligible stroke patients which is more than any single healthcare facility in the same amount of time.

“Specialists On Call provides Sierra Vista the ability to have neurologists based at an academic medical center on call to our emergency room and provide us with 24/7 coverage. This is very important to a small hospital in a rural county that serves as its community tertiary referral center,” said Candace Markwith, Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center Chief Executive Officer. “We researched the alternatives and Specialists On Call provides Sierra Vista with the most comprehensive, yet cost-effective support, so that we can have 30 days of coverage every month.”

Specialists On Call plans to launch additional telemedicine service lines that address the specialty physician shortage. This year SOC rolled out an emergency telepsychiatry service line for hospitals hard pressed to provide 24/7/365 psychiatric on-call coverage in their emergency room. Thus far, the telepsychiatry service has already produced six times the consult volume that the SOC teleneurology service generated during its first nine months after launch.

Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center

Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center is a 200 bed facility serving San Luis Obispo County. It is a Joint Commission accredited Primary Stroke Center – the only California hospital with this distinction between Santa Barbara and San Jose. Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center provides patients the highest quality, most innovative healthcare while developing and maintaining cooperative relationships with physicians, payers and employees in order to continually improve the health of its community.

For more information please visit www.sierraregional.com

Specialists On Call

Specialists On Call, Inc. (SOC), is a Joint Commission-accredited organization that is changing emergency medicine. As the leading provider of emergency telemedicine consultations, SOC gives hospitals vital 24/7/365 access to more than 45 board certified, fellowship trained academic specialists, each with a minimum of 10 years experience. With operations on both coasts, SOC provides more than 1,100 emergency consultations per month for hospitals nationwide and hospital systems such as Vanguard Health Systems, HCA, Inc. and Tenet Healthcare Corporation.

For more information please visit www.specialistsoncall.com

CONTACT:

Specialists On Call, Inc.
Kathleen Plath
Vice President Marketing
571-439-2741
plath@soctelemed.com

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